Count on Love

Count on Love
Melinda Curtis

It took guts for Annie Raye to come home to Vegas. With a cardsharp for a father and a convicted embezzler for an ex, she's already got two strikes against her. The last thing the struggling single mother needs is some private investigator deep-sixing her chance to go straight!Annie, a former gambling prot?g?, isn't going to pull the wool over this ex-soldier's eyes–even if Sam Knight is finding the woman and her daughter impossible to resist. She certainly has an uncanny knack for counting cards, but Sam can read people. And everything about Annie tells him she wants the same things he only wishes he could have: a family and a love you can rely on…

Count on Love

Melinda Curtis

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To my family, who never seem able to remember

we have trash cans and dirty clothes hampers

(no, the counter/floor won’t do), who always wait

until the last minute to complete assignments and

lesson plans (which need something they assume

I can miraculously produce from thin air) and who are my biggest fans. Love you guys!

To Calvin and Hobbs, who remind me it’s

break time by dropping a slobber-covered ball on

my bare feet. Even writers need exercise!

To Anna Stewart, Susan Floyd and Sigal Kremer

for listening, reading and occasionally

admitting that my writing shows talent.

The next bottle of wine is on me!

And to Dad. I hope I have your courage,

big heart and gumption when I’m eighty-one!

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“I’LL SEE YOUR five hundred and raise you five hundred.” Vince’s grin was infuriatingly superior. He thought he was going to win. What a jamook.

Aldo rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, studying his grandson from behind a poker face he’d perfected more than fifty years ago, his bland expression giving no hint as to his cards or his irritation. All Aldo’s efforts to groom his heir seemed to be wasted.

You’d think by twenty-seven my grandson would have learned.

Aldo peered beneath the rim of his trifocals at his remaining chips. Vince hadn’t planned this well, raising the stakes to the point where the boy had to risk it all.

His fingers shaking with age, Aldo selected five one-hundred-dollar chips with the Sicilian Casino’s gold-and-black logo from one of his many stacks, and tossed them in.

“Call.”

With a flourish, Vince snapped his cards onto the green felt. Everything he did was loud and flashy, drawing attention when subtlety was called for. “Two pair. Kings and tens.”

Angling his head, Aldo glanced at his cards once more before fanning them gently in a row on the table. “Full house.” He hadn’t lost the touch. The same touch that had earned him the money to bankroll the Sicilian, one of the most opulent casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. He’d bought it over fifty years ago when he’d decided, with Rosalie’s help, which side of the law he wanted to be on. Definitely, the right side.

Vince’s face contorted. He was a good-looking young man when he wasn’t upset about something.