Carrera's Bride

“You can’t prove that!” Fred replied haughtily.

“I’ve got cameras everywhere. You’re on tape. The whole thing,” Marcus added.

Fred blinked. He scowled and peered at the older man. Through the fog of alcohol, recognition stiffened his face. “Carrera!” he choked.

Marcus smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. “So you remember me. Imagine that. Small world, isn’t it?”

Fred swallowed hard. “Yeah. Small.” He straightened. “I actually came here to talk to you,” he began, swaying unsteadily.

“Yeah? Well, come back when you’re sober,” Marcus said firmly, giving the man a look that he hoped Fred would manage to understand.

Fred seemed to sober up at once. “Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll do that. Listen, this thing with the girl, it’s all a…a misunderstanding,” he added quickly. “I had a little too much to drink. And she just kept asking for it…”

“You liar!” she exclaimed.

“We’ve got tape,” Marcus said again.

Fred gave up. He gave Marcus an uneasy look. “Don’t hold this against me, okay? I mean, we’re like family, right?”

Marcus had to bite his tongue to keep from spilling everything. “One more stunt like this, and you’ll need a family—for the wake. Got me?”

Fred lost a shade of color. “Yeah. Sure. Right.” He pulled away from Smith and tried to sober up. “I was just having a little fun. I was drunk or I’d never have touched her! Sorry. I’m really sorry!”

“Get him out of here,” Marcus told Smith, and he turned away while the drunken man was still trying to proffer apologies and excuses. He gave Fred a long look.

“I’ll…call you,” Fred choked.

Marcus nodded without Delia seeing him.

He took Delia by the arm. “Come on, we’ll get a needle and thread and fix your dress. You can’t go home looking like that.”

She was still trying to figure out what was going on. Fred seemed to know this man, even to be afraid of him. And strange messages were passing between them without words. Who was this big, dark man?

“I don’t know you,” she said hesitantly.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Repairs first, introductions later. You’re perfectly safe.”

“That’s what my sister said I’d be with Fred,” she pointed out, tugging his jacket closer. “Safe.”

“Yeah, but I don’t need to attack women in dark alleys,” he stated. “It’s sort of the other way around.”

He was smiling. She liked his smile. She shrugged and her perfect lips tugged up. “Okay.” She managed a smile of her own. “Thanks.”

“Oh, I was just there to back you up,” he said lazily, letting her go into the elevator in front of him. “You’d have done okay if you’d had a shotgun.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. “He was inhumanly strong.”

“Men on drugs or alcohol usually are.”

“Really?” she asked in a faint stammer.

He gave her a worldly appraisal as the elevator carried them up to his office. “First experience with a drunk?” he asked bluntly.

“Well, not exactly,” she confessed on a long sigh. “I’ve never had an experience like that, at least. I seem to draw drunks the way honey draws flies. I went to a party with Barb and Barney last month. A drunk man insisted on dancing with me, and then he passed out on the floor in front of God and everybody. At Barb’s birthday party, a man who had too much to drink followed me around all night trying to buy me a pack of cigarettes.” She looked up at him with a rueful smile. “I don’t smoke.”

He chuckled deeply. “It’s your face. You have a sympathetic look. Men can’t resist sympathy.”

Her green eyes twinkled. “Is that a fact? You don’t look like a man who ever needs any.”

He shrugged. “I don’t, usually. Here we are.”

He stood aside to let her exit the elevator.

She stopped just inside the office and looked around, fascinated. The carpet was shag, champagne colored. The furniture was mahogany. The drapes matched the carpet and the furniture. There were banks of screens showing every room in the casino. There was a bar with padded stools curled around it. There were computers and phones and fax machines. It looked like a spy setup to Delia, who never missed a James Bond film.

“Wow,” she said softly. “Are you a spy?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I’d never make the grade. I don’t like martinis.”

“Me, either,” she murmured, smiling at him.

He motioned her toward the huge bathroom. “There’s a robe behind the door. Take off the dress and put on the robe. I’ll get some thread and a needle.”

She hesitated, her eyes wide and uncertain.

He pointed to the corner of the room. “There are cameras all over the place. I’d never get away with anything. The boss has eyes in the back of his head.”

“The boss?” she queried. “Oh. You mean the man who owns the casino, right?”

He nodded, trying not to smile.

“You’re a…” She almost said ‘bouncer,’ but this man was far too elegant to be a thug. “You’re a security person?” she amended.

“Something like that,” he agreed. “Go on. You’ve had all the hard knocks you’re going to get for one night. I’m the last person who’d hurt you.”

That made her feel guilty. Usually she was a trusting soul—too trusting. But it had been a hard night. “Thanks,” she said.

She closed the door and slid out of the dress, leaving her in a black slip and hose with her strappy high heels. She put on the robe quickly and wondered at her complete trust in this total stranger. If he was a security guy, he must be the head guy, since he’d told the other guy, Smith, what to do. She felt oddly safe with him, for all his size and rough edges. To work in a casino, a man must have to be tough, though, she reminded herself.

She went out of the bathroom curled up in the robe that had to be five sizes too big for her. It dragged behind her like the train of a wedding gown.

Her rescuer was seated on the desk, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed reading glasses. Beside him was a sewing kit, and a spool of black thread. He was already threading a needle.

She wondered if he’d been in the military. She knew men back home who were, and most of them were handy around the house, with cooking and mending as well. She moved forward and smiled, reaching for the needle at the same time he reached for the dress.

“You sew?” she asked.

He nodded. “My brother and I both had to learn. We lost our parents early in life.”