Lucky (22 page)

For nearly an hour, he walked the hillside in a stooped position, reading marker after marker, searching for the Houston name. And finally he came to the last plot on the hillside. He straightened up, sighing with frustration and
wondering if the cemetery had been added onto somewhere else.

That was when he saw it. Far down the hillside where he’d already been, yet off to the side, as if it didn’t really belong with the rest. One small, unpretentious, unpainted cross that leaned at an angle to the ground that it had pierced—a lone, lonely monument to someone’s passing. And in that instant, he knew.

Quickly he moved toward the spot. And as he did, he wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before. Although the mound of earth atop it was as grassy as the rest, it still had not had time to settle, and protruded on the site instead, like a sore on the face of the land.

He knelt at the cross and tried to straighten it. But when he touched it, he realized that it was cracked at the base, as if someone had kicked it while walking past. Reluctantly, he was forced to let it lean. His lips firmed and his eyes turned dark. Not even in death could this man escape a town’s disdain.

Using his forefinger as a marker, he slowly traced the characters of the name upon the cross. But it was an unnecessary task. He’d already known before he knelt that it would bear the gambler’s name.

John Jacob Houston
. Not even a birth or death date to commemorate his passing. Just the mention of his name. Nick frowned as he remembered the man at the station and the way he’d spit before saying it, then thought of Lucky and shuddered.

“Damn, baby, no wonder you hate. No wonder you can’t forgive. If I’d grown up here…in a town that hated me as much as this, I’d need to blame someone too.”

Nick stared long and hard at the cross at his feet. It was moments before he could trust himself to speak.

“We have ties, Johnny Houston. You knew my father. I love your daughter. What the hell are we going to do about it all?”

No answers came drifting through the air to satisfy his soul. Long minutes passed. The sounds of Cradle Creek faded into the distance as Nick lingered at the foot of Johnny Houston’s grave. And as he stood, a sort of peace began settling the pain left behind from Lucky’s leaving.

Remembering the man and his passions, an odd notion struck. Before Nick thought, he’d pulled a quarter from his pocket.

“Heads…I leave and forget I was ever here. Tails…I will be back.”

As the coin spiraled in the air above, Nick shivered. He could almost hear the laughter of a gambler’s glee. Only after it had landed in the grass at the foot of Johnny’s grave, did Nick realize he’d been holding his breath. He looked down, then his breath escaped in a slow, relieved hiss.

“So. It seems I will be back…but you should know, Johnny Houston, that I will be with your daughter. And maybe together we can fix your baby’s broken heart. Be waiting, old man. For once in your life, don’t let her down.”

It was an odd thing to say in parting to a man in his grave. Yet in an eerie sort of way it made all the sense in the world. A man who was already dead still stood between Nick and his lady. Maybe he was the only way to put it all back.

Nick headed toward his car and pulled away from the station. He made a turn and drove up the hillside, searching the dirt roads between the houses for a sign of Whitelaw’s Bar. He had a yearning to meet Lucky’s nearest and dearest neighbor, assuring himself that nothing could be worse than what he’d just seen.

But when he found the place, he realized he was wrong. Worse was more than a state of mind. The man standing behind the bar was an unbelievable combination of fat, degradation, and dirt.

“Welcome to Whitelaw’s,” Morton Whitelaw said, and rubbed at one of the spots on the bar as if clearing the man a place to lean.

Nick nodded, then stared around the small, dingy room at the odd assortment of tables and chairs. It was impossible not to compare this place to Club 52. And as he did, he realized how, simply by the fortune of birth, destiny could impact life. With no choice for the lot of the draw, a baby is either thrust into a world of love and comfort, or a scratch-for-survival existence.

He shuddered, then blinked. A readjustment of his vision had not changed a thing. It still looked as grimy and sordid as it had when he’d entered moments ago.

“How ’bout a drink?” Morton asked.

Nick shook his head. “No, thanks. I need information, not refreshment.” Then, remembering the last reaction he’d gotten to his request, he punctuated his statement with a smile.

Morton Whitelaw frowned. He knew when the fancy stranger had entered the door that he wasn’t out looking for a good time. Not in here.

“In here, information costs the same as a beer.”

Nick tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter.

“So,” Whitelaw said, fingering the bill with relish. “Whatcha need ta know?”

“Someone told me that Johnny Houston lived near here. That one of his girls even worked for you at one time.”

Whitelaw grinned and rested his elbows on the bar as he leaned forward.

“You’re not the first feller to come askin’ about them bitches,” Whitelaw said. “Are you the law?”

Nick’s fists doubled in anger. But he knew that fighting would not get him the answers he needed, so he held his fury in check.

“I’m not the law. Just a friend of Lucky Houston’s. A good friend,” he added.

Whitelaw flushed beneath his week-old growth of whiskers. “It’ll cost more than five bucks afore I’ll say their names aloud.”

Nick tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the counter, then braced his hands on the edge of the bar and stared intently into Whitelaw’s watery eyes.

“Talk, mister, or I’ll take the change out of your damned hide,” Nick said.

Whitelaw grabbed the bill and rubbed it between his fingers before holding it up to the light. Finally he shrugged. “What the hell do you want to know? They lived next door. I saw that asshole, Houston, every day of his life. He sat at the back table and played cards with whoever he could talk into sittin’ down with him. His middle girl, Diamond, waited tables for me. The oldest one…”

Whitelaw paused and tossed back a shot of whiskey. The overflow ran in twin rivulets out and then down either corner of his mouth. Nick looked away in disgust, wondering which he was going to lose first. Patience or temper.

“What about the oldest daughter?” Nick asked.

“She was the worst of ’em all. That bitch didn’t take no for an answer and hated men with a passion. I could a had her…if I wanted,” he bragged, knowing that anyone who would argue the point was absent. “But who wants a headstrong witch like that?”

Any man with a lick of sense…or maybe one with a sense of adventure
, Nick thought, but kept his thoughts to himself.

“And the youngest one. What do you know about her?” Nick prodded, almost holding his breath for the answers he’d come so far to hear.

Whitelaw shrugged. “When she wadn’t in school, she was at that table, sittin’ on her daddy’s knee. Hell, she could shuffle and deal better’n most men by the time she was ten. It was my personal opinion that she was old Houston’s pet. Being the baby an’ all,” he explained.

Nick’s heart sank. In spite of it all, Lucky had found a way to love the man who’d dragged them to the end of the world and then left them to fend for themselves. He’d come a long way to learn what he already knew. Love and loyalty were synonymous in his lady’s heart. He’d had her love and, but for the sins of their fathers, might have had her loyalty as well. Now…

He started for the door.

“Hey! Don’t you want to know how those bitches cheated me out of—”

“Not particularly,” Nick drawled. “Whatever they gained will never be enough to make up for what they lost.”

“They didn’t have nothin’!” Whitelaw shouted. “So they didn’t have nothin’ to lose.”

“Respect. They never even had a chance to earn the respect they had coming because of people like you. From what I’ve seen and heard, the people in Cradle Creek judged three innocent girls simply by who their father was. And while every last one of you keeps blaming him for being a gambler, in turn, you allowed him to be one by participation.”

“You sonofabitch! I didn’t allow no sich thing.”

“You let him play,” Nick said, pointing to the table in the back. “And every mother’s son who sat down at that table did so of their own free will.” By this time, Nick was shouting. “What is it with you people? Did poverty rob you of your will to think for yourself? Money doesn’t buy brains, you fool. And if it did, you’d probably spend it on something else.”

Whitelaw was speechless. Finally he muttered, “What the hell is it to you, what we thought about them? About any of them?”

“Lucky Houston is my lady,” Nick said. “Remember that the next time someone comes into this town asking questions. I might not like what you say about the woman I’m going to marry.”

Whitelaw gawked. When Nick left, he ran to the win
dow and stared at the sports car as it sped away. He fingered the money in his pocket and frowned, wondering how someone as worthless as a Houston could luck into all of that. And then he remembered.

“Hell, maybe ol’ Johnny knew what he was doin’ after all when he named them girls. Lucky! She’d hafta be lucky to land a dude like him.” Then he walked back to the bar and emptied what was left of the whiskey into his glass. “Here’s to me.”

It didn’t matter that there was no one on hand to witness the toast. The hundred-dollar bill in his pocket was all the company he wanted.

“It’s going to snow before the night’s over.”

Lucky shivered at the waitress’s warning and hastened her step as she and several other employees ran from the trailer park to the casino to begin their shifts.

Her hours at the children’s playground were long and tiring. As if the music from the carousel wasn’t enough, the constant computerized mechanical beeps and whistles from the video arcade rang in her ears long after she was in her bed and trying to sleep. And while she was getting a regular wage, it was small compared to what she’d been drawing at Club 52. The only thing tipped on the merry-go-rounds was the food and drink that was tipped onto the floor.

But choosing this job was the saving of her sanity. Returning to the gaming tables would have been a form of torture for Lucky. Everything about it would have reminded her of what and whom she’d lost.

Nick
.

Just the thought of his name made her hurt all over—from the inside out—as she remembered what they’d had together. Right after that memory came another, of herself and her sisters and what they had done without. She groaned. How would she reconcile the two and not lose her mind in the process?

“Hey, Lucky. Do you want to hang out after your shift? I know this guy who’s been dying to meet you. Say the word and he’s all yours.”

“No, thanks,” Lucky said. “I’m not interested in starting any relationships.”

“Hell, honey. Neither is he!” the waitress shrieked, and slapped her leg, laughing uproariously at her own humor.

Lucky frowned. She’d been running from people like that all her life. Once she’d told Nick that she didn’t want to be everyone’s girl. Just someone’s special and only girl. For a while, she’d convinced herself that she’d had it all.

“I’ve got to go,” Lucky said. “Talk to you later.”

The women were friendly, but Lucky was on another wavelength and they knew it. They shrugged, then hurried away.

As Lucky started inside the employee entrance of the hotel-casino, something stung her cheek. She turned and looked up at the sky. The first icy flakes of snow were beginning to fall. One fell on the sleeve of her coat. By itself, it was a tiny thing of little import. Coupled with a few billion others that were predicted to fall, it could be a thing of death.

Lucky shivered. That snowflake’s life was something
like her own. It had struggled long and hard to become what it was, only to disappear in a flash at the touch of a fingertip.

Loneliness overwhelmed her. She missed her sisters. She missed Fluffy LaMont. And right at that moment, she would have given a year of her life to be standing within the shelter of Nick Chenault’s embrace.

“Hey, better get inside before you freeze,” someone shouted out the door.

Lucky obeyed. It took less effort to do so than to explain why she’d been staring at a snowflake upon the sleeve of her coat.

The shift had been long, but it was nothing compared to the loneliness of her nights. Lucky lay snug beneath the covers, listening to the wind blow icy shards of sleet and snow against the metal exterior of her temporary home and could not sleep. She kept hearing Dieter Marx curse her name and her father’s existence. And she couldn’t forget the shock on Nick’s face when she accused Paul Chenault of being a liar and a cheat.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, and turned onto her side, cuddling her pillow in lieu of the man in her heart. If she could only forget her childhood promise to Johnny, then maybe she could find her way back to Nick.

Tears choked her voice as she whispered into the silence of the trailer, “Damn you, Johnny. Why did that watch matter so much?”

While she now knew where it was, getting it back was another thing altogether. She didn’t have it in her to accept another dollar of charity, especially from a Chenault.
She’d given away her pride for the man’s love. She didn’t have anything left to trade.

She sighed, then closed her eyes, willing herself to go to sleep, knowing that the time to return to work would come before she was ready.

And just at the brink of exhaustion, near the edge between sleep and dreams, the answer came. Without warning. With little fuss. She sat straight up in bed, staring into the darkness with cool deliberation. She knew what must be done. There was a way to resolve her dilemma, but it involved considerable risk. Yet for a gambler’s daughter, was there any other way?

I
t was almost Christmas. Nick went through the motions of each day, while people who worked for him searched the streets for the woman who could bring the light back into his world. And although he couldn’t bring himself to call off the search, in his heart he believed that it was futile. He believed that when Lucky was ready, she would come back to him on her own. He had to. It was all that kept him going.

Paul’s health improved, but his spirits did not. He lived each day with the guilt of knowing that his past had ruined his son’s future. And no amount of reassurance from Nick was able to change his mind. In Paul’s eyes, the facts were irrefutable. If he hadn’t screwed up so badly, none of the horror of the past few months would ever have happened.

And so they waited, each Chenault lost in his own private misery, for fate to deal the final hand.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, Lucky was busy
setting a plan in motion that would bury the ghosts of the past for all time.

“Manny! One of the girls up front said to find you. You have a phone call,” Maizie said, as she hurried by with a tray full of empties.

The conversation he’d been having with one of his managers came to an abrupt end as Manny bolted for his office without any explanation.

“She must be pretty special,” the manager said, watching Manny as he ran through the crowd.

“How do you know it is a woman who called?”

The manager grinned. “He was running.”

She laughed and walked away.

Manny picked up the phone. Before he answered, he knew it would be Lucky, even though it had been weeks since she’d last called. At that time, he’d sensed she was coming to some sort of decision. But today, the deep husky sound of her voice in his ear made him shiver with apprehension. Was today the day?

“Manny, are you well?”

He sighed and dropped into his chair. “I am fine,
querida
, but it has been a while since you called. I was beginning to worry.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Lucky began.

He smiled. “For a woman…that is a dangerous thing,” he teased.

Lucky leaned her forehead against the wall, absorbing the familiar voice and the laughter in his words.

“Is…a…everything okay at the club?” she asked.

“
Everything
is walking around like a wounded bear,

chica
. The least you could do is put him out of his misery.”

Lucky smiled through tears. Nick
was
her everything. But he would probably never be her special someone. Not after he learned what she planned to do. When it was over, chances were that he would never speak to her again.

“I need a ride, Manny. When are you free?”

Manny jumped from the chair as joy crept into his voice. “Are you coming back? For good?”

She sighed into the phone, and the sound sliced through his heart like a cold wind cutting across the mountains.

“I’m coming back. I don’t know how good it will be, but I’m ready to do what must be done.”

“And that is?”

“Just come get me, Manny. You’ll know soon enough. All of you will know.”

He frowned. It didn’t sound good, but at least she was coming back. Maybe when she saw Nicky she would relent. It was all he could hope for.

“When can you leave?” he asked.

“Now. Tomorrow. Next week. Whenever it’s convenient for you to drive this far.”

“I’m already on my way,” Manny said. “Nick will be overjoyed when he learns that—”

“I’m not going back to Nick’s house and you don’t tell him I called. I’m going to my apartment at Fluffy’s. I’ll let her know I’m coming. For now, that’s as close as I can get.”

“For now,
querida
, it is close enough. You pack. I will be there by two o’clock. Our winter brings darkness early. I want to get you back into the city before nightfall.”

Lucky hung up, shaking with anxiety now that the decision had been made. But there was a peace inside her heart that had nothing to do with the fear of facing her demons head-on. Tonight, for the first time in months, she would be sleeping in the same city as Nick. Even though they would be miles apart and he would be unaware of her presence, for the first time since she’d left him, she would sleep unafraid, knowing that he was near.

With as little ado as the day she’d arrived, Lucky walked into the manager’s office and announced her decision to leave. Preoccupied with the day-to-day problems of the hotel-casino, he wished her well, took down her new address so he could mail her last check to her, and watched her leave. Out here, employees came and went with as much regularity as the patrons that they served.

Within thirty minutes, Lucky was packed and sitting on the edge of her bed, staring out the window to the bleak landscape that still bore signs of a light dusting from last night’s snow.

“Two days until Christmas,” she whispered, and at the thought, remembered last year and the meager but happy holiday she and her sisters had shared. “My Queenie…and Di…where are you now?” Her chin quivered as she buried her face in her arms. “Be safe. Be well. This prayer is my gift to you.”

A sharp rap on the office door caught Nick’s attention. Grateful for the interruption, he pushed back the stack of papers upon his desk.

“Come in,” he called.

Manny burst into the room, his dark eyes glittering, his
nostrils flaring as he drew in one long breath after another. It was obvious that he’d run all the way up the stairs.

“What’s wrong?”

“I need off.”

If Manny had asked for the deed to Club 52, Nick would not have been more surprised. Manny Sosa did not take vacations.

“Anytime,” Nick said, thinking that Manny was referring to the upcoming holiday. “Just let me know what days and I’ll cover for you myself.”

“No! No!” Manny said, and slapped his hand to his chest in a useless effort to calm his racing heart. “I need off today. Now. This minute.”

Nick stared at him, but Manny refused to meet his gaze. Something else besides a vacation was behind the request.

“What the hell’s going on, Manny? And don’t start hedging around the issue. I want the truth.”

It was the opening Manny had been waiting for for weeks. Living with the guilt of having helped Lucky Houston elude Nick’s grasp had been difficult.

“I always tell the truth…when I’m asked,” Manny added.

Nick frowned. “So I’m asking. Why do you need off…now?”

“A friend just called. This friend needs a ride. I do not let my friends down.”

“If this friend needs a ride so bad, why doesn’t this friend just call a cab?”

“Because it is a long way from the Prima Donna to Las Vegas. She couldn’t afford the fare. Besides…I took her out there. The least I can do is bring her back, now that she’s ready to return.”

Nick’s pulse accelerated.
She?
Suddenly the guilt on Manny’s face was too obvious to ignore. “You mean Lucky, don’t you?”

Manny shrugged.

Nick was stunned. Manny was the last person he would have expected to betray him. “You sonofabitch. You knew all along where she was.”

It was not in Manny to let the accusation pass, especially when it was truly unjustified. “Yes, I knew. And I would have told you anytime had you but asked.”

“Why would I think to ask you where Lucky had gone? Why would I assume you even knew?”

Once again, Manny shrugged.

Nick glared at him. Latin men had a definite edge on
norteamericanos
. A shrug was much simpler, and covered a whole lot more than a five-minute argument. And then another thought occurred to him. “Why did you take her out to that godforsaken country?”

“Because she asked it of me.”

Nick bowed his head. So simple. No wonder he hadn’t guessed. His mind had been filled with all kinds of convoluted plots. He should have realized that wouldn’t have been Lucky’s way. She was as straightforward as they came.

“And now she asked you to bring her back?”

Manny nodded.

“Thank God,” Nick said, and buried his face in his hands.

“But not to your house, Nicky. I am to take her back to her old apartment.”

“Why? What’s she going to do?”

Nick couldn’t quit wondering if the decision that she’d made involved leaving Las Vegas altogether. He could hardly bear to face that inevitability.

“I do not know,” Manny said. “All she told me was that soon enough we would all know what decision she had made.”

“So go get my lady.”

Manny grinned. “I thought you would see it that way,” he said. “I won’t be long. I should be able to—”

“I don’t care how long it takes. Just bring her the hell back, Manny. I’m trusting luck to do the rest.”

“Spoken like a true gambler,” Manny said.
“Adiós.”

Moments later he was gone, leaving Nick with new fears to replace old worries. The optimism that he’d brought back with him from Cradle Creek was long gone. Coupled with the uncertainty of what Lucky was planning, it made him nervous as hell.

He started to pace. “This has to be a good sign,” he told himself. “I have to trust her enough to believe that she would not willingly throw away everything we had out of a sense of misplaced loyalty.”

Thankful for the fact that he had promised to oversee Manny’s duties until he returned, Nick was soon on the floor of Club 52, mingling with the customers, absorbing the frenzy of holiday visitors who’d opted for slot machines rather than shopping, who’d chosen green felt ta
bles as their holiday green instead of needles of pine.

As he watched, he began to feel a bit like they looked. Out of sync with the rest of the world.

Just come home to me, baby
, Nick thought.
I’ll never ask for another thing as long as I live if you do
.

But Nick’s request was too late for Santa Claus, who had already made up a list of his own, and Lady Luck was too involved in the games of chance going on around them to listen. Nick had to trust in his own Lucky Lady to do what was right for them all.

“Oh, darling, thank God you’re back.”

Lucky smiled through tears as Lucille LaMont’s clutch around her tightened.

“I missed you too,” she said, and patted the old woman’s cheek, feeling, even through the layers of powder and paint, the fragile, paper-thin texture of her skin. “Looks like you’ve been busy while I was gone. What have you done to the place? And to your hair?”

Fluffy waved her arm. “I had it cleaned. From top to bottom. As for my hair, my hairdresser called it ‘witchy.’ I think it adds character to my face. What do you think?”

Lucky grinned, eyeing the coal black hair and the platinum white wings above each eyebrow that had been added for effect. It reminded her more of Dracula’s bride than a witch.

“You’re already full of character, Lucille. As for your hair, what can I say? By the time I get used to it, you’ll be ready for something new.”

Fluffy laughed and then shooed away the cat that kept weaving its way between her feet with every step that she
took. Today she wouldn’t be mad at him for nearly making her fall. She was too happy to get her girl back under her wing.

“We’ll make a plan. I’ll have a dinner party. We’ll invite Nick and Paul and patch things up right. I promise I won’t cook. We’ll have it catered instead.”

Lucky turned away, and in that moment, Fluffy realized that there were serious things her girl had yet to resolve.

“Okay,” she said. “Change of plans. What do you want me to do? Just don’t tell me you want me to help you pack. I don’t want you to go. Tell me you’re not leaving again.” Fluffy’s chin crumpled with her last plea.

It was all Lucky could do not to join her in tears. “No, I’m not leaving Las Vegas. At least, not for good. I may have to take a trip soon, but it won’t be for long. If I’ve learned one thing from living in the foothills of these damned desolate mountains, it’s that when I saw the skyline of Las Vegas in the distance, my heart sort of kicked. Kind of a reminder that I’d stayed away from home too long.”

“Okay,” Fluffy said, drying her eyes before the tears had time to fall. “Then first things first. What do you want me to do? How can I help fix what’s gone wrong in your life?”

Lucky’s smile disappeared. Shadows settled behind the lights in her eyes as she knotted her hands into fists.

“I need to borrow a dress.”

Fluffy grinned. “That’s easy enough. I have nearly everything I’ve ever worn that hasn’t fallen apart from age. And while you can’t tell it now, once we were nearly the same size. What kind of a dress are we talking about?”

“One that will stop clocks…and men’s hearts.”

Fluffy’s eyes grew round, and she pursed her lips. “Why don’t I feel like this is good?”

“Because it’s not. I need something that will display my uh…charms…and to such a degree that it will be blatantly obvious what I have to offer.”

“Why?” The frown on Fluffy’s face deepened. “You don’t need enticement, my dear. Nick is already smitten and wounded beyond belief. He wants this resolved as badly as do you.”

“It’s not for enticement, Fluffy. I’m going to make a bet with Nick, and the only collateral I have is me. It’s only fair that he see what he’s playing for.”

“My dear!”

Fluffy had seen a lot of life in her eighty-four years, but the idea of a young woman offering herself up as the ante on the gambling block didn’t sit right.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

Lucky’s eyes grew teary. “No. But it’s the only way I can think of to fix what Paul broke. If I can settle this pain in my heart, if I can close my eyes at night and forget the look Johnny always wore when he cried about that damned watch, then maybe I will be able to put it behind me.”

“Then come with me,” Fluffy said. “I think I know just the dress…if I can find it, that is.”

The second floor of the old Victorian home was soon alive with activity. Drawers, bags, and covers went flying as Lucille LaMont sifted through her belongings. More than one ghost was disturbed as dress after dress was unveiled.

When she finally found the one she’d been searching
for, even Lucky sighed with relief, and then staggered in shock when she looked at it more closely.