Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
Autumn
Brightly lit slots surrounded me, and the smell of old cigarette smoke was suffocating at times.
The Silver Hotel and Casino was a sophisticated hot spot in Las Vegas, but a casino was a casino.
My eyes watered, and I wanted to curl up in my hotel room and catch some Hallmark movies before The Golden Girls came on.
Being a single lady in my golden years was looking more and more like a reality. I used to reassure myself that I’d have my sisters with me, but two were enjoying wedded bliss and the third was reported with a new beau every six months.
I could always take my boss up on his offer. We’d been out a few times, and he’d given me a sweet kiss. The sex would be perfectly adequate. I could live with adequate. Sex wasn’t the glue of a relationship.
Right?
My coworkers and I were parked at the nickel slots.
We all worked at the elementary school and they were friends too, but I usually didn’t hang out with them after work.
Yet when my coworkers had asked me if I wanted to go on a trip to Las Vegas, I’d jumped at the chance.
It didn’t matter that they joked I was the mom of the group or that I was yawning by nine and that was when they were ready to begin.
I needed to get out. Nothing like a weekend with younger women to help me figure out the Mark situation.
Brittany, a kindergarten teacher, leaned toward me. “Autumn, do you think he’s here?”
Awareness tingled over my skin every time the he in question was mentioned.
Brittany was not talking about Mark.
Gideon James. The local boy who’d grown up into a dark-haired god in a suit. He was the CEO of the hotel casino we were staying in. There was absolutely no reason for us to cross paths, but that didn’t stop any of us from peering around corners to catch a glimpse.
After the sale of his family’s land had been announced, Gideon had come to town to face off with my brothers, who were buying it. Now, he was the talk of the town, and the ladies had insisted on making his casino the destination for our trip.
I hadn’t fought them. I was the only one of the group to have glimpsed him in real life. I’d heard how deep his voice was. I’d seen him storm out of my family’s distillery. Looking him up wasn’t necessary. His image was emblazoned in my memory.
“Maybe we’ll see him,” I answered. “If he’s working late. Do CEOs work on the premises? Live here?”
“Could you imagine?” she gushed. “Like one of those places you see on TV where the elevator opens into the apartment.”
“Isn’t that a penthouse?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I exist on a teacher’s wage. I don’t know a thing about penthouses.”
“We could ask him if we see him.”
She giggled. “I can’t believe you don’t remember him.”
Oh, I remembered him and those wide shoulders. “He’s a little older than Tate, and Tate’s seven years older than me.”
“I do love an older man.” She punched a button on her slot. I’d quit playing several minutes ago when I’d started daydreaming about my hotel room. “Does he really look like his pictures? Gideon James.” She purred his name.
No headshot could do that man justice.
A shiver ran down my spine when I thought of how he’d stalked across the parking lot to his car. His black suit had to have been stitched onto his body, and his dark hair hadn’t dared to move in the wind. And when he’d turned his head? I’d caught a glimpse of stormy eyes.
I hadn’t seen the color from across the distillery. Blue? Green? What was the color for Melt My Underwear?
I, apparently, liked a brooding man.
That brooding man would not like me, a Bailey. He’d argued with my brothers about buying his family’s land, and while my last name was Kerrigan because my sisters and I had been adopted, I was still a Bailey.
“Jackpot!” Kaitlyn, the school’s admin, yelled from the other side of Brittany.
Destiny laughed, the phys ed teacher, leaning in from farther down the row of slots. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
Kaitlyn grinned. “Fifty bucks is fifty bucks. Next round is on me.”
Brittany scooted off the plush stool attached to the slot machine. “Should we go to the club?”
“Absolutely.” Kaitlyn removed her casino card from the machine and waved it around. “If we don’t get in, I can bribe ’em.”
Laughing, we all followed her. She teetered on her four-inch heels, but her lack of balance was likely from our day of drinking and not the actual shoes. The girls were all a little tipsy from the steady stream of cocktails. I was the soberest of them, but not because I was the elder of the group.
I’d learned how to taste bourbon when I was fifteen.
That was the first time Daddy had known I’d had a drink.
With three older brothers, an older sister, and numerous foster kids who Mama and Daddy had taken into the fold for what time they had with us, I had been exposed way before my first “official” taste.
Destiny tugged down her short skirt. I owned volleyball shorts with a longer hem than hers, but if I had her legs, I would buy ten of those skirts. The others were dressed like her—short skirts, high shirts, and fuck-me makeup. The opposite of how they dressed at work.
I wore ankle boots with a chunky heel and rust-colored leggings.
My cream wrap dress was the opposite of what I’d wear teaching too, but only because I wouldn’t want to get watercolor on it.
I could blame my style on being a teacher approaching my midthirties, but the truth was that my style had been the same when I was their age.
Brittany squealed. “The line isn’t that long. This is our night!”
They’d been so excited to go to Glitter & Gold, an ultraposh club that a normal person could still get inside.
I eyed the outside dubiously. Black with sleek silver lines, it fit into the theme of Silver while standing out. The posts for the waiting lines were gold and so were the bouncers’ vests.
We got in line.
“At least we’re indoors,” I muttered.
Destiny nudged me. When she leaned in, I almost got a face full of cleavage. Definitely not her work clothes. “You’re such a cat lady.”
“I only have one cat.”
She winked. “I’m sure Mark will let you get more.”
I gawked at her. Mark Knutson. My boss. “It was only three dates.” The first of which shouldn’t count.
We’d both happened to be at Mountain Perks on a Saturday to get our caffeine fix.
For the second date, he’d asked me out by saying, If you were to go out with me, Fatima would have to do your evaluations.
Fatima was the school’s assistant principal.
I’d said yes. A biological clock could only be ignored so long, but I was courting speculation in and out of the workplace by dating my boss.
It was also flattering that he’d been willing to risk tarnishing his brand-new position by dating me.
But then, it was Bourbon Canyon. Small dating pool and all, which I knew too well.
Brittany spun around. “I heard he wants you to meet his parents.”
He had asked me to meet his parents. In Spokane. Which would make the visit an overnight trip. “He’s moving a little fast.”
I liked sex as much as the next girl, but an overnight trip was serious for someone I didn’t think I’d been seriously dating.
Still, a girl had needs.
Could Mark fulfill them?
Small dating pool.
I was the sister who’d never left Bourbon Canyon except for college. It was looking like I’d be the last to settle down. Junie might have a round-robin of boyfriends, but based on sheer numbers, her odds were better than mine. Something that loomed over me in Vegas.
“As long as he moves slow when it counts,” Brittany whispered.
We crept forward. The others chattered about how excited they were, lobbing questions back and forth. What’s the dancing like? The drinks? The men? The women?
When we reached the front, the bouncer in his black sport coat, gold vest, and black slacks nodded at Brittany while raking his gaze down her mile-long legs. “Welcome to Glitter & Gold, ladies.”
Brittany did a happy shimmy and rushed in. Kaitlyn and Destiny followed her, getting ogled by the bouncer.
He held his hand up to me.
“Wait here, ma’am,” he said, then turned to the side with his hand to an earpiece.
Ma’am?
Wasn’t I one of the ladies?
He muttered a few things. Was his earpiece real or for show? I wasn’t well traveled, but I also wasn’t an idiot. This place wanted to seem exclusive. The girls who got in wanted to feel special. Superior. Like gold.
I was dressed like fool’s gold.
How was I going to get in? I wasn’t the sexy Kerrigan sister. I might as well have worn my Sorry, I have plans with my cat tonight sweater.
“Excuse me.” The bouncer ushered me back, creating more distance between us, like my plainness was a contagion.
A second bouncer politely gestured for my friends to move to the side.
A tall blond with heels I swore were twice the height of Kaitlyn’s strode through us like we were the sea and the bouncer had parted us for her. She disappeared down the dark entry.
Well then. I didn’t catch her face, but her long, glossy blond hair hung down her bare back. Her gauzy red dress was shorter than Destiny’s. She was a polished ruby compared to us river rocks.
When she passed, my friends started down the entry after her. I glanced from them to the guys who’d moved to block me again.
“We’re full at the moment,” the first bouncer said, his gaze skipping over me.
“Oh. Okay.” Embarrassment flooded my cheeks. The whole not-well-traveled-but-not-naive thing could be a curse. I knew why I wasn’t being allowed in.
I wasn’t fuckable.
My throat grew thick, and the cozy haze of the two cocktails I’d had in the last three hours burned off.
Brittany stopped past the entry threshold and so close to the official opening of the club. Her eyes were wide. “Autumn?”
The rest of my friends spun to stare at me, the excitement draining from their faces.
“Why can’t she come with us?” Brittany asked, her voice sharp.
One of her students might’ve started crying, but the bouncer didn’t flinch. “We’re full. You want in?”