Let It Ride (2 page)

 

J
ORDAN TRUDGED
into the female employees' room, tossed her tray in a bin and kicked off her heels. She was bone-tired, and her feet were killing her. Praying Mom had had a good afternoon and evening, Jordan snatched her time card and punched out. How long before Mom got to be too much for Mrs. Simco to handle?

“TGIF.” Sherri groaned as she rubbed her feet.

“Don't you have to work tomorrow?” Jordan did, but at least she didn't have classes in the morning, only her regular shift tomorrow night. She and Mom spent Saturday mornings at the Laundromat.

“Umm-hmm, but somehow, saying ‘Thank God it's Monday' just doesn't have the same kick.” Sherri grinned and peeled off her costume.

“True.” Jordan smiled.

“Besides, Friday means the kid is with his dad and Toby is picking me up. You want a ride, hon?” Sherri's son was ten, but was already acting the rebellious teen. Toby was a bartender at the Luxor hotel and casino and got off work at the same time as Sherri.

“And where would I sit in his Miata? Besides, my apartment is totally out of your way.”

“I saw you talking to that tall, dark and dangerous guy with Captain McCabe…”

Oh, no. Here it comes. The you-need-to-get-laid speech.

“Which one? They all start looking alike after so many years.”

But she was lying. There'd been something about the scarred major that had lingered in her mind as she'd wandered the casino selling her cards. Something compelling that had nothing to do with his thick brown hair, or the subtle defensiveness in his bearing. It wasn't even the scars running down the side of his neck and right hand. It was something in his eyes.

“You're kidding, right?” Sherri threw her an incredulous look. “Dark hair, bomber jacket, fresh scars down the right side of his neck? Don't you want to see if he's got scars anywhere else?”

“He's just like all the rest, Sherri.” No different than a thousand other hotshot flyboys roaming around The Grand.

Except…he'd made that comment about intelligence and beauty. And he'd made her laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed out loud. And, most of all, he'd ended the encounter without propositioning her.

Stop with the fairy tale, Jordan. That's what had gotten her into the mess her life had become in the first place.

Sherri scowled. “Are you still pining over Mr. Banker-dude?”

“After I caught him with that showgirl? No way!”

“So, forget about waiting for a commitment right
now. Just have a wild fling. You don't have to be in a relationship to get you some, girl. You need a man.”

Irritation overtook Jordan. Her friend had it wrong. She didn't need anyone. She'd never depend on a man again. She'd run off with bad-boy-Ian and been deserted. And she'd dated safe-guy-Bob and been cheated on. It may have taken only two failed relationships, but she'd finally learned men weren't reliable. She reined in her annoyance. Sherri was a good friend. She meant well. She'd helped Jordan a lot when she'd first started working here six years ago, teaching her how to earn bigger tips by smiling and flirting, and helping her evade the advances of the worst drunks.

“I know you're thinking of my best interests, Sherri, but all I need is to ace my finals next week. And getting involved with some flyboy from Nellis will not help me memorize differential equations.”

“Oh, I don't know. I always did better on a test if I had a good screw the night before. Helped me relax.”

“Sherri!” Jordan managed not to roll her eyes.

“All I'm sayin' is, that was one fine piece of man-meat staring at you tonight like you rocked his world. Just think about it if you see him again.”

Think about it? Hadn't she just been convincing herself
not
to think about him?

After she changed clothes she left through the hotel's employees' entrance, heading for the bus stop past the parking garage behind the hotel. Even at two in the morning, Vegas vibrated with noisy traffic and tourists.
But she'd long grown tired of the bright flashing lights she'd once found so exciting.

She glanced down the street toward the bus stop and spotted the bus already there. Jordan dodged a few cabs and a limo as she sprinted across the street. “Wait!” She waved her arm just as the bus pulled away in a wheezing cloud of exhaust.

“Crap!” It'd be twenty minutes before the next bus came by. She stuck her fists inside her denim jacket pockets and shifted her weight from sneaker to sneaker. Her body screamed for a hot bath and a soft bed, so she closed her eyes and envisioned the day she earned her programming degree. Once she did, her life would change.

She'd get a respectable job with a decent salary. Buy a home of her own with two bedrooms so she wouldn't have to sleep on the couch. Have professional care for her mom. All she had to do was stay smart, stay focused.

Not let some Casanova derail her plans. Again.

But every once in a while her heart just wanted to let loose all the wild feelings inside. Toss the laundry basket and run screaming into the night.

“Hey.” A strong hand gripped her arm and Jordan jumped. “Got a dollar?”

She let out a relieved breath as she recognized one of the bums that slept in the alley behind the hotel. She could smell the alcohol on his breath. But booze wasn't the worst odor. Poor old guy. But for the grace of God…

A motorcycle engine revved and tires screeched. “Let go of the lady,” a deep voice ordered from behind her.

The old man yanked his hand away and backed off.

Jordan spun around.

The Air Force major. He sat astride a monstrous black motorcycle, his gaze focused menacingly on the old man. His tight, low-riding jeans and black leather jacket personified danger as he curled his fists around the handlebars.

Her body sizzled as she stared at him. The image burned into her psyche, drawing her into the fantasy of the rugged loner coming to her rescue, sweeping her into his arms and—

“I'm fine, Major,” she blurted out to stop her crazy dream. She unzipped her backpack and dug around for one of the prepaid cards she'd bought. One of the diners close to her apartment had a program for the homeless. A way to ensure a handout didn't go to buy booze. “This will get you a hot meal and coffee at Zelda's Café on fifty-fourth.” She handed the old man the card, and he snatched it from her and took off.

From the corner of her eye she saw the major get off the bike and move toward her.

“You shouldn't encourage those people.”

She turned. “He's harmless.”

He rubbed his jaw and took a step toward her.

Her chest tightened as he came closer. Her insides coiled with a tension she'd been trying to deny since his comment about blond geniuses. She knew it was just a pickup line, and she'd heard better. But he'd said it as if he really believed it.

“That happen often?”

She shook her head. “No. At least, not in a while.”

His dark eyes searched her body, his gaze moving down from her breasts to her legs and up again.

Her stomach clenched with a sharp ache. It'd been too long since she'd had sex, that's all. Why had she waited? Oh, yeah. The whole trying-not-to-make-the-same-mistake-twice thing. She'd told Bob she wanted to wait until they were really committed, and he'd agreed. Too easily, she could see now. And it'd been easy for her, too. Easy and safe.

She'd never felt the kind of ache for Banker Bob that she did tonight for the Air Force major.

“He'll probably trade the card for booze or dope,” he said.

Straightening her shoulders, she bristled. “Well, I have to try.” His subtle musky cologne drifted to her on the breeze and she drew in a long, slow breath.

He looked down the street, then back at her. “I could give you a ride.”

She studied his black bike. Almost a quarter of a century old and she'd never ridden on a motorcycle. An image invaded her mind of riding behind him, her cheek pressed against his back and her palms clutching his hard abs. The vise in her chest squeezed with a dangerous desire.

“Hey, I understand.” The major headed for his bike and swung his leg over the seat. He looked at her as he rolled the bike forward and the kickstand lifted. “You don't know me.” His jaw muscle clenched as he turned the key and started the engine. The bike roared to life
and he set his boot on the steel footrest and looked up at her. “Yet.” Without another word he curled his fists and took off out of the parking lot.

A panicky sense of lost opportunity swept over her. Something inside her wanted to run after him and yell at him to come back, that she'd changed her mind. It was her gnawing inner voice begging for a night of reckless abandon. How could she feel so out of control? How could she even consider it?

Then the bike made a U-turn down the street and roared back into the nightclub parking lot behind her. The engine shut off, and he shoved the kickstand down and strode toward her. She watched the sway of his hips, the tight fit of his T-shirt beneath the jacket, the set of his jaw.

“Decided I'd wait with you until the bus comes.”

Jordan tried to swallow past the hard lump in her throat. Even security-conscious Banker Bob had never been willing to lose sleep to make sure she got home okay. “Thank you.”

He nodded, but didn't speak, just stood next to her with his arms crossed over his chest.

His leather-mixed-with-man scent tantalized her. The coil in her tightened more, her muscles tensed and she couldn't even look at him.

You're an idiot, Jordan Brenner. So, he was sexy. So were a thousand other players trolling the casino looking to get laid. He just had a different approach. She should remember this guy was a friend of Captain McCabe's, the most prolific serial dater in Nevada. And,
she wasn't a naive eighteen-year-old anymore, a girl who ran off with the first guy to charm her jeans off. She had responsibilities. She didn't get swept off her feet.

When the bus pulled up, she climbed aboard without a backward glance.

“J
ORDAN
E
LIZABETH
,
this underwear is indecent!” Tammy Brenner hissed as she held up a pair of thong panties.

Snatching them from her mom's fingers, Jordan sighed. “They're for work, Mom. So they don't show under the uniform, remember?”

“I don't like you working in that place,” Tammy said. “Showing off everything God gave you.”

At least today Mom remembered where Jordan worked. “It won't be for much longer. Soon, I'll have my degree.” She stuffed the rest of their underwear and bras into a clean trash bag and carried the empty laundry basket over to the buzzing dryer. “Then I'll start applying for a better job.” Her stomach clenched at the thought. A part of her was so ready to get away from casino work. Another was scared to death. What if she failed her finals? Or what if all the corporate honchos took one look at her and decided she wasn't qualified? She needed to buy an ultra-conservative business suit. And maybe darken her hair…

The boom of jet engines scraped across the sky as the Thunderbirds' buzzed over the city, practicing maneu
vers. Car alarms went off outside the Laundromat and her mother started screaming.

“What is that? What's happening?” Tammy's voice escalated and started to quiver.

Jordan rushed over and put her arm around her mom. “It's only the jets from the air base, Mom, remember?”

“I want to go home. My regulars at the diner will miss me.”

Oh, no. She'd been doing so well this morning.

“But I need you here with me. We make a great team, don't we?”

When her mom didn't answer, Jordan gave up and stuffed the last of the towels from the dryer into the basket. She knew from experience she better get her mom home as soon as possible. Sticking the basket under her arm, she snatched up the trash sack of clean clothes, and led her mom by the arm out of the Laundromat.

“No. I want to go back to my house. I hate this place!” Tammy jerked out of her hold and stopped on the already scorching sidewalk, glaring at Jordan as if the illness was all her fault.

And maybe it was. If she hadn't quarreled with her mom and run off to Vegas with Ian, maybe her mom wouldn't have had the breakdown and been fired. No. The two incidents were years apart. Not related. She refused to start another self-destructive spiral of blame. Mom had Alzheimer's. A medical condition that had nothing to do with a teenage daughter's stupid mistake.

“Let's go home, Mom. We can watch
Sleepless in
Seattle
again before I go to work, okay? Would you like that?” She tried to lead her mom gently toward the bus stop, speaking soothingly about visiting Mrs. Simco and seeing her new fish. Mom loved watching Mrs. S's aquarium. But when the bus pulled up, and she tried to get her mother to climb the steep metal steps, Tammy wouldn't budge.

“No!” She stuck her bottom lip out like a toddler and shook her head, refusing to move.

Jordan shifted the basket of towels higher on her hip and put her arm around her mom's shoulders. “It's okay. You like riding the bus.”

“I want to go home,” Tammy wailed. She twisted out of Jordan's grasp and headed at a brisk walk down the sidewalk.

“Mom!” Jordan dropped the clean clothes and went after her. Her mother shouted and cried for someone to help her as Jordan tried to reason with her.

Several people were staring, but that was the least of her worries. The last time Tammy had been this bad, it had taken a trip to the doctor's office and a sedative to calm her down. Just getting her to the doctor had been a nightmare involving a 911 call.

The knowledge that her mother would require a special facility soon broke Jordan's heart.

One day at a time. The saying had become her mantra. Sometimes it was the only thing that held the panic at bay and allowed her to keep going.

“Look, Mama.” Jordan pointed at the convenience store beside them. “They have slurpies. Can I have
one?” Asking for her mom's permission was an inspired tactic. Soon, Tammy had bought her little girl her favorite childhood treat and was happily back at the bus stop with their clean clothes, which by some miracle were still sitting where Jordan had dropped them. Crisis averted.

For today.

 

A
LOUD BANGING
jerked Cole off the bed into a crouch, his right hand scrambling for his weapon. It took a moment for desert terrain to fade and the lush hotel room to come into focus. His breath came in short, heavy spurts. He wasn't in hostile territory, covered in sand and blood, making his painful way back to base.

Snapping his wrist up, he checked the time, wiped his temple on his shoulder, and stood. Eighteen hundred hours. Six o'clock. In the evening.

The hotel door banged again. McCabe yelled, “Jackson, you in there?”

Cole scrubbed his face and ran a hand through his hair, then moved to let his buddy in. “Geez, McCabe, what the hell's with all the pounding?” Not waiting for an answer, he turned and headed for the john, leaving McCabe to make himself at home.

When he returned, McCabe was slouched in a corner wing chair, boots propped on the writing desk.

“You could have just called my cell,” Cole said, rummaging through his duffel.

“I did.”

Damn. Cole hadn't heard his cell ring. He still hadn't
adjusted to not being a hundred percent. Like he wasn't a whole man.

Maybe it was true.

“You look like crap, buddy. You been asleep all day?” McCabe asked.

“I'm on vacation.” After seeing Jordan safely on the bus, he'd come back to his room, but he hadn't slept much. He'd had the nightmare again and then he'd lain awake thinking about his last mission, going over in his head what he could have done differently. If he hadn't been such a damn hotshot.

Avoiding his thoughts, he'd headed for the Centrifuge downstairs—God love Vegas's twenty-four-hour casinos—and nursed a couple of tequilas until soaps came on the television behind the bar. But he wasn't about to admit any of this to McCabe.

McCabe leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. “I got us tickets to the Bullring at the Motor Speedway tonight,” McCabe said. “Thought we'd head over to the all-you-can-eat lobster at the Mandalay first. Grady and Hughes are waiting downstairs.”

The thought of seafood made his stomach heave. “You guys go on.” He shot his buddy a cocky grin. “I've got a bet to win.” No way he could hold his head up around McCabe if he lost this wager. They'd been competitors since their first day of flight training.

McCabe shot off the chair. “Are you kidding me? These are front-row seats to Legends Cars. They got Thunder Roadsters, man. That Keno girl won't end her shift until 2:00 a.m. You got plenty of time.”

He didn't know which irritated him more. That McCabe called her ‘that Keno girl,' or that he knew when her shift ended. “Her name's Jordan.”

“Who?”

“The blonde from last night. Jordan Brenner.” He smiled remembering the way she'd introduced herself. “Mother of five.”

“What? She's got kids?”

He looked at McCabe. “No, she—Never mind.”

“You okay, buddy?”

“I'm good. Thanks for the ticket, but I'm flying solo tonight.”

Cole headed to the bathroom, lathered up some shaving cream, and smeared it over his jaw.

“So, you're going to sit around in the casino for eight hours and watch her work?”

“Watching a woman like that beats watching souped-up roadsters race around a track hands-down.”

“Fine. But it won't make any difference with her.”

Cole shot McCabe a parting hand gesture and then finished shaving, his thoughts centered on Jordan. His pulse revved up as he yanked the tags off a new shirt. Just thinking about her dusted all the morbid cobwebs from his mind.

With the thrill of the challenge coursing through his veins, and the thought of getting that gorgeous body beneath his, he went down to the casino.

 

“T
HIS IS
all your fault, McCabe.” Hughes scowled at him, and then took a huge bite out of her hot dog.

Captain Mitch McCabe scooted along the hard metal bleacher and picked up a nacho. The Speedway was crowded tonight, the roadsters were amazing, and the hot dogs and beers were only a dollar. What was not to love? “What'd I do now?” He had to raise his voice over the roar of the stock cars revving up at the starting line.

“Making that bet with Jackson. Is nothing sacred? The man's been in the hospital for two months, for Pete's sake.”

“Why is it always for Pete's sake? What's Pete got that I don't?”

Hughes glared at him and punched his arm.

“Ow!” He rubbed his arm. Good ol' Hughes never had qualms about telling a person exactly how she felt. That's what he liked about her. He gestured to Grady on his other side, sipping a bottle of water. “He was in on it, too. Why is it my fault?” Mitch blamed himself for a lot of things, but not the bet last night.

“You're the one who challenged him to go after that poor girl. How do you think she would feel if she knew he was just trying to win a bet?”

“First of all—” Mitch swallowed a chip dripping with gooey cheese “—poor girl? The woman can take care of herself. She sure as hell shut me down.”

“And that's why you really did this, isn't it?” Hughes just wouldn't let it go. “You're infuriated that some woman actually turned you down.”

“Second—” he planned on ignoring that remark “—Jackson needed a challenge. Trust me, this is just the thing to take his mind off his situation.”

Grady grunted. “Permanently grounded.” He shook his head. “But the Air Force has reassigned pilots before.”

“If they don't discharge him,” Hughes said.

“Did Jackson mention a reassignment request?” Mitch kind of hoped Jackson might get assigned here at Nellis.

Grady shook his head. “Not to me. And it could take weeks for his commanding officer to get the paperwork in order one way or the other. He's just gonna have to wait it out. You know how it is. Hurry up and wait.”

When Mitch had first heard Jackson had been shot down and was MIA, guilt and worry had kept his insides churning. Then they'd heard Jackson had wandered into the Iraqi base camp after two days in the desert, looking more dead than alive. And he hadn't looked much better when Mitch had visited him in Maryland at the hospital at Andrews AFB.

The memory burned like acid in his stomach. He should have been there, with his buddy, in Iraq, watching his back. And he would have been if he hadn't made an ass of himself over Luanne.

Mitch's hand hurt and he looked down. He opened his clenched fist and stretched the fingers until he could feel them again. The track came into focus and he realized he'd missed the first two laps of the race thinking about those dark days of his divorce.

He glanced over at Hughes and something eased inside him. She was leaning forward, elbows on knees, watching the race the same way she did everything: with intense interest. Her ball cap was turned backward, as usual. Her cheeks were bulging with the last of her
hot dog, and she had a glob of mustard on the corner of her mouth.

He grinned, glad she was back after two years stationed at Langley. She was the kind of pal who stuck by you through hell and back and always told it like it was. He never had to guess what she was thinking and she never ever lied to him.

Either she was involved in watching the race, or she didn't want to yell over the noise, but he knew she hadn't dropped the subject.

And sure enough, as the tow trucks cleared the track of a messy crash, she turned to him. “It was a stupid thing to do, McCabe. Jackson may like the challenge, but what if that girl turns him down? Have you thought about how it might affect him? He'll be worse off than before. And minus his treasured bottle of Scotch.”

Mitch shrugged. “We've always competed, always dared each other. And you know he wouldn't want to be treated any different just because he's been injured.”

Hughes stared at him with pursed lips, and then looked down at the beer she held between her legs. “I guess you're right.”

It struck him suddenly that Hughes had changed since being at Langley. Something was different. He wondered if something had happened. Well, if she wanted to talk about it, she'd bring it up. “Hey, how about we hit Duffy's after this? See if we can get lucky tonight.” He grinned at her.

The look she gave him was…weird. Like she pitied him or something. Yeah—even though they'd kept in
touch, sending text messages and e-mails—Hughes was different. Used to be she'd flip him off after falling for his latest practical joke. Then she'd shoot him an evil grin and plot her revenge.

But lately, she just seemed testy.