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Following her to Vegas? Who did that?
She wasn’t surrendering the field this time. Not until she’d treated him to a very large piece of her mind. And maybe the kick in the cojones she’d almost given Ron.
More elevator cars arrived and more people spilled out as Deck whispered in Ron’s ear.
“Got it,” said Ron, blond head bobbing. “Loud and clear.”
“Fair enough.” Deck let go of his arm.
Ron backed away with both hands up. “But hey, like I said, she’s not wearing a ring.”
“A ring?” Nell demanded. Not that either man was listening.
“She’s naughty like that sometimes,” Deck said with a so-what shrug. “Now get lost.” Ron didn’t argue. He took off. Nell leaned against the marble wall, her arms crossed over her chest, as Deck turned her way again. “Good,” he said. “You’re still here.”
Where to even start with him? “You’ve got to leave me alone, Deck.”
He came toward her, so big and solid, all lazy male grace, in jeans that hugged his hard legs and an olive green shirt that made his hazel eyes gleam so damn bright—chameleon eyes, she used to call them. They seemed different colors depending on his mood and the light. He’d rolled his sleeves to his elbows, showing off strong forearms, all muscled and veiny, dusted with sandy-colored hair.
It just wasn’t fair. No man should be allowed to look that amazing. She wrapped her arms tighter around herself to keep her grabby hands from reaching out and squeezing those rock-hard muscles of his.
Because, she bleakly reminded herself, squeezing Deck’s muscles—or any other part of him, for that matter—was a big, fat never-again.
He kept on coming. She had to put up a hand. “That’s close enough.”
“I love that red dress. You should wear red all the time.”
“I know, I know. Goes with my hair, blah, blah, blah. Did you tell Ron we’re married?”
He smirked. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“Except, well, doesn’t that make me the kind of woman who takes off her wedding ring and goes trolling for a hot date with a stranger?”
Deck snorted. “Ron? Hot?”
“Well, theoretically speaking—and Ron’s hotness or lack thereof? Totally not the issue here.”
“Sparky,” he chided. “You would never cheat, I know that. The thing with Ron was only to make me jealous.”
Two elevators opened at the same time. People got off and others got on.
She waited till the doors slid shut to say, “There was no thing with Ron. And what do you mean, make you jealous? I had no idea you were in Vegas, and even if I’d known you’d followed me here, I would have zero desire to make you jealous.”
“But you did make me jealous. And I forgive you. You’re a high-spirited woman, always have been. You’ve got to have your fun.”
Where was this going? Somehow, once again with him, she was failing to make the point that he should give up chasing after her because she was never getting caught—not by him. No way. “I think it’s just possible that you’ve finally completely lost your mind.”
He slapped both big hands against his chest. “Go ahead. Hurt me. Call me names. I can take it.”
More elevator doors opened. If she ducked into one, he would probably just follow her. Dropping her key card into her clutch, she drew away from the wall and started walking backward. Deck came after her. They ended up facing off by a potted ficus plant around the corner from the constant flow of people going up and down floors.
“What now, Nellie?” he asked, his voice so gentle suddenly, the intimate sound tugging on a tender place inside her, a place she used to be so certain he had killed stone dead all those years ago.
Why wouldn’t it die? This...feeling she had for him, this stupid, impossible yearning for a man who had turned his back on her twice after promising she would always be the only one for him?
He just stood there now, close enough to reach out and touch, waiting for her to make her next move. Oh, she just ached to open her mouth and yell at him to leave her alone, get the hell away from her. But yelling would not only bring security running, it would be admitting that he was actually getting to her.
Which he was. And which he knew already. She could see that in his gleaming, watchful eyes.
It was bad enough that he knew. Losing her temper over it would only prove how powerfully he affected her. “Who told you I would be here?”
“Have dinner with me and we can talk about that.” He took a step closer.
“Forget dinner.” She stepped back. The ficus tree was right behind her. A trailing branch brushed her shoulder. “And I already know the answer to my question. Garrett told you I was here, am I right?” Her brother and partner in Bravo Construction liked Deck, damn it. Plus, there was the big, high-end house Deck had hired BC to build. Generally speaking, it was good business for Garrett to help an important client get what he wanted—but not when what he wanted was another chance with Nell. Garrett had no right to take a customer’s side against his business partner, who also happened to be his own flesh and blood. “I’m going to kill Garrett.”
Deck stuck his hands in his pockets. She read the move as an attempt to look easygoing and harmless. As if. “It wasn’t Garrett,” he said.
“Then who?”
“Your mother told me.”
Now Nell really wanted to start yelling. Willow Bravo had turned into a matchmaking nightmare over the past couple of years. She’d become obsessed with seeing her children married and settled down. At least until now Willow had shown the good sense to leave Nell out of all that crap.
But, one by one, Willow’s other four grown children had found marital bliss. That meant only Nell remained single and Willow just couldn’t let well enough alone.
“You pumped my mother for information about me?” Nell kept her voice low, but barely.
“Whoa. Settle down.”
“That’s just plain wrong.”
“True,” he said with zero remorse. “When it comes to you, I’ll do whatever I have to do. But I didn’t go to your mother. She called me. She said she hasn’t forgotten how much you loved me once.”
Nell pressed her lips together and expelled an outraged breath through her nose. “Admit it. She called you after you let her know that you’ve been trying to get something going with me.”
“Think about it, Nellie.” He looked way too pleased with himself. “How could she not know that I’ve been chasing you?”
He had a point.
In recent months, Deck had made himself famous in their hometown of Justice Creek with his relentless pursuit of her. He’d started his campaign to get her attention by going to the places she went—her brother Quinn’s fitness center, her half sister Elise’s bakery for coffee early in the morning and her friend Rye McKellan’s pub. His constant presence at McKellan’s had really annoyed her. She not only liked to hang out there—she lived above the pub in the loft next door to Rye’s.
After a month or so of turning up just about everywhere she went, he’d called her and asked her straight out for a date.
She’d said, “Absolutely not and do not call me again.”
He hadn’t called again. But he had shown up at Bravo Construction to ask her to build his new house. She’d handed him over to Garrett.
Then he’d begun showering her with flowers and gifts. She’d refused to accept them. He’d hired a skywriter to blaze their names in a heart across the Colorado sky. She’d pretended not to notice.
Every time he would come up with a new way to get her attention, she would shut him right down. She’d never imagined he’d follow her all the way to Sin City.
Yet, here he was again.
“I’ll be having a serious talk with my mother,” she said. “And you should be ashamed of yourself, pumping her for information about my whereabouts when I have told you repeatedly that once was more than enough when it comes to you—I mean, twice when you count how you came back to me after breaking up with me, only to break up with me all over again.”
“I’ll say it once more. I didn’t pump your mother for information. She called me and volunteered it. And as for me dumping you, that was more than a decade ago. It was high school. We were only kids. I was messed up and not ready. We’re different people now.”
“No, we’re not. I’m still the girl who would have taken a bullet for your sorry ass. And you’re the guy who fooled me twice. That’s two times too many.” And yet, here she was, backed up against a ficus tree, arguing with him when there was supposed to be nothing she had to say to him.
And he still wouldn’t give it up. “If you won’t have dinner with me, how about a drink? We can discuss how much you despise me in comfort—and in depth.”
“I never said I despise you,” she muttered grudgingly. Was she weakening? Oh, all right. Maybe a little. She added more firmly, “You just need to catch a flight back to Justice Creek and leave me the hell alone.”
“One drink, Nell.” The man had some kind of radar. He knew he was getting to her. “One drink won’t kill you. And I get it. You don’t want to be seen out with me. You don’t want anyone to imagine you might be thinking of giving me another chance.”
“Because I’m not.”
“But look at it this way.” He lowered his already velvety tone even more, down to an intimate, just-you-and-me growl. “This is Vegas and you’ve heard what they say about Vegas. No one ever has to know...”
It was a really bad idea and she needed to walk away.
But she just couldn’t help comparing him to Ron the tile man—to every man she met, as a matter of fact. He wasn’t the guy for her, but he was kind of her gold standard of what a man should be—well, aside from the way he’d smashed her heart to bits two times running.
No, she couldn’t trust him. But he was hot and funny and smart. He was that perfect combination, the one she couldn’t resist: a big, down-to-earth blue-collar guy with a really sharp brain. And he’d been after her for months now.
Okay, it made her feel like a fool to admit it, but lately she’d been having these crazy urges to go ahead and let him catch her.
She wouldn’t, of course. He would never catch her again.
But it was Friday night in Vegas, and going back to her room seemed beyond depressing. Friday night in the second week of November and she was alone when all of her siblings were happily married—half siblings, too—and there were four of those.
She was the only single Bravo left in Justice Creek. Too soon, it would be Thanksgiving and then it would be Christmas, with all those family get-togethers where everyone would be coupled up but her. Even her aggravating widowed mother was getting remarried.
And, one of these days, Nell wanted to be married, too.
Unfortunately, only once in her life had she found a guy who really made it happen for her. That guy was standing in front of her now. And he just wouldn’t let it go. He kept coming after her. With him constantly popping up every time she turned around, how was she supposed to stop comparing every guy she met to him?
It just wasn’t right. It needed to stop.
But running away from him had gotten her nowhere.
“One drink, Nellie,” he said again, his voice a rough-tender temptation, his eyes eating her up and, at the same time, daring her to look away.
What could it hurt, really? Maybe she would actually get through to him at last.
Maybe tonight he would finally get the message. They could speak reasonably to each other and she could convince him to give up the chase. Come to think of it, she hadn’t tried talking to him civilly, woman to man, yet. And walking away time after time just wasn’t cutting it.
She sucked in a slow breath. “One drink.”
For about half a second, he looked totally stunned, the way he had all those years and years ago, when she’d taken the desk in front of him the first day of sophomore English and then turned around and grinned at him. He’d gaped at her, his expression one of complete shock. But only for a moment. Then he’d looked away. She remembered staring at the side view of his Adam’s apple, thinking he was hot, even though one of his battered sneakers had a hole in the toe, his shirt screamed hand-me-down and his hair looked like he’d cut it himself.
He was lean and rangy then, his shoulders broad but not thick, more hungry looking, like some wild animal, always ready to run. It had taken her weeks to get him to talk to her. And by then, she was a goner. She’d just known he was the guy for her.
Wrong.
The grown-up Deck had lost the stunned look. Once again, he was supremely confident, totally at ease. He said, “Well, all right then, Nellie. I know just the place.”
Chapter Two (#u66d3c9dd-00aa-5ad3-978d-33e063d2e494)
Declan McGrath had done what he set out to do. He’d created the success he’d always wanted.
This year, his company, Justice Creek Barrels, had made number 245 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies. The broke nobody from the wrong side of town had officially arrived.
He had it all. Except Nell, who was stubborn, full of pride and unwilling to let go of the past and admit that they belonged together.
Didn’t matter, though. She could keep on refusing him. He wouldn’t give up.
And, one way or another, she would finally be his.
This, tonight, was a big step. She’d actually said yes to him, even if it was only for a drink. He had to go carefully with her, he reminded himself. If he got too eager, pushed too fast, she’d be off like a shot.
Still, as he led her to a quiet corner booth at the casino/hotel’s most secluded bar, he had a really hard time suppressing a hot shout of triumph. Or at the very least, a fist pump or two.
She slid into the booth on one side and he took the other. The light overhead brought out the deep, gorgeous red of her hair. Her eyes, green as a secret jungle lagoon, watched him warily.
God, she was beautiful. Even more so than when she used to love him. And back then she’d been the most beautiful girl in the world. All the guys had wanted a chance with her.
But she’d only wanted him.
He’d thrown her away. Sometimes even a smart guy made really bad choices.
It had taken him eleven years and a failed marriage to face the truth that he was one of those guys. He didn’t love easy, but when he finally did, that was it. She was it, the one for him. For four never-ending months now, he’d been actively pursuing her. In all that time, she’d never given so much as a fraction of an inch.
Until tonight.
Her mother had been right. He’d needed to get her away from Justice Creek and all the reminders of how bad he’d messed up with her back in the day. Vegas was the perfect place to finally get going on the rest of their lives together.
Now, if he could just keep from blowing this...
* * *
Nell tried to figure out where to begin with him as the waitress came, took their orders and returned with their drinks.
When the waitress left the table for the second time, Nell took a sip of her cosmo and jumped in. “Why me—and why won’t you take a hint that I’m just not interested?”
He stared into his single malt, neat, as if the answer to her question waited in the smoky amber depths. “I don’t believe you’re not interested. You just don’t trust me.”
“Duh.” She poured on the sarcasm and made a big show of tapping a finger against her chin. “Let me think. I wonder why?”
