License to Thrill Read online

  For no particular reason the phrase Good Time Charlee popped into his mind’s eye along with a very provocative image of a tipsy Charlee boogieing with a lampshade on her head and wearing a very naughty black silk nightie. He could see the picture all too clearly. Perturbed, Mason shook his head to dispel the unwanted mental photograph.

  Charlee sighed and then spoke as if she’d recited the details many times before. “My mother was a dancer at the Folies Bergère and had her name legally changed to Bubbles Champagne. She and my father were never married. What can I say? She was a bit frivolous. Any more questions?”

  “Do you know where I can find Ms. Sikes?”

  “She’s incommunicado.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She’s gone on her annual fishing retreat and she can’t be reached, but let me assure you she most certainly is not with your grandfather.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Maybelline hates men. Especially rich ones.”

  “Who said my grandfather is rich?” Mason didn’t believe her for a second. No doubt she was covering for her grandmother.

  Charlee waved a hand at his Rolex. “Like grandfather like grandson.”

  “So, you’re claiming your grandmother can’t be reached?”

  “No claiming to it. It’s the truth.”

  “No cell phone?”

  “She can’t stand ‘em. Says they give you brain cancer.”

  “No beeper?”

  “Nope. That’s the whole point of the trip. Uninterrupted peace and quiet.”

  “I think you’re lying.”

  Charlee shrugged. “Believe what you want.”

  “It’s imperative I speak with Ms. Sikes,” Mason said in a controlled, measured manner. He was through fooling around with Miss I’m-Going-To-Be-No-Help-Whatsoever Champagne. He wanted his grandfather found. “If Ms. Sikes can’t be reached by electronic means then I will go to her fishing cabin. Give me directions.”

  “No.”

  “What?” His glare intensified. Sweat pooled around his collar. In his mad, twenty-four-hour sprint from Houston to Vegas, he hadn’t even bothered to change from his business suit and he was broiling like filet mignon at a backyard barbeque.

  That’s what happened when you allowed single-minded focus to overcome common sense. Stubborn persistence was his biggest flaw and his greatest strength. His father often joked Mason was like an obstinate snapping turtle, never knowing when to turn loose.

  “You heard me.” She raised her chin, daring him to call her bluff.

  He stared openmouthed. He wasn’t accustomed to being refused anything. Testiness was his first instinct but something told him venting his frustration would be the wrong tactic to take. She’d most likely dig into her view. He could see she had a bit of snapping turtle in her too.

  Forcing a smile, he slipped an amiable tone into his voice. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot. Why don’t we start over?”

  “Okay.”

  “My grandfather Nolan disappeared out of the blue with a substantial amount of money. We found a note in his room indicating he was on his way to meet your grandmother here in Vegas. We’re really concerned about him. He’s been behaving a bit out of character lately. I need to speak with your grandmother to find out if she has heard from him.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Maybelline left strict orders not to be disturbed. I can’t help you.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “So that’s the way it’s going to be.”

  “Maybelline will be home in a couple of days. You can speak to her then. In the meantime, relax. Have fun. See Vegas. Enjoy a holiday.” Under her breath she muttered, “With that stick-up-your-butt attitude you certainly look as if you could use one.”

  Like hell.

  No way was he waiting a couple of days. In a couple of days Nolan and Maybelline could run through the half million at the craps table. Besides, in a couple more days Hunter would have the Birkweilder deal—his deal—sewn up, and would be busily collecting accolades from their father without giving Mason credit.

  He gritted his teeth and fell back on his third line of offense. When authority and charm fail, there’s always money. He removed his wallet from his jacket pocket, unfolded the expensive leather case, and pulled out a crisp new Benjamin Franklin.

  “How much is the information going to cost me?” He slapped a second hundred on the desk.

  Charlee gasped. He could practically feel the anger emanating off of her.

  What? Two C notes weren’t enough. Obviously, she was as greedy as her grandmother.

  “Three hundred?” Mason added another bill to the stack.

  “Are you trying to buy me off?”

  “Let’s make it an even five.”

  “Buddy, you can just keep peeling until your wallet is empty, because I’ll never tell you where Maybelline is. There isn’t enough money in the world.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Okay, he had handled the situation badly. He’d grossly misread Charlee Champagne and he’d acted like an unmitigated jackass. Mason wasn’t afraid to admit when he’d made a mistake. Unfortunately, not only had she refused to listen to his apology, she had unceremoniously tossed him and his money out of her office.

  He’d blown his chance with her. Charlee would never help him now.

  A short nap and a hot shower later, he prowled the suite he’d taken at the Bellagio in a thick white terry-cloth bathrobe and plowed his hands through his freshly washed hair.

  He was back at square one. Gramps, along with his girlfriend Maybelline and the half-million dollars, was out roaming the streets and he had no idea where to start looking.

  What if they had eloped?

  Mason sank onto the bed. His father would have a conniption fit. At the thought of failing and letting his family down, he groaned, lay back against the mattress, and stared up at the painted ceiling depicting fifteenth-century Italian nudes.

  “Thanks a lot, Gramps. I needed this like a hole in the head.”

  A twinge of guilt flicked in his stomach. This wasn’t about him. This was about his grandfather and what had made Gramps unhappy enough to embezzle five hundred thousand dollars and tear off in the middle of the night without a word to anyone.

  He was also a little hurt. He’d believed he and Nolan were pretty close. They were both second sons in the Gentry family and understood the meaning of taking a backseat to the favored eldest. They shot a round of golf together every Sunday afternoon. They played poker with Nolan’s cronies once a month. Why hadn’t Gramps confided in him?

  Mason’s eyes traced the lines of the ceiling painting. A woman, her bare back exposed, lay on a gilded chaise lounge. He tracked the curve of her form, noticing the woman’s complexion matched the exact same spiced peaches color of Charlee’s skin.

  What would Charlee look like naked?

  Mesmerized by the concept, his imagination ran rampant as he envisioned pert firm breasts, a taut flat belly, and yards of her long coltish legs wrapped around his naked waist while still wearing her gruesome, but oddly compelling, neon blue cowgirl boots.

  Startled, Mason bolted upright. Good God! He was almost an engaged man. Why in the hell was he fantasizing about another woman?

  Why indeed?

  A wave of embarrassment, followed by a virtual monsoon of guilt, flustered him.

  “It’s just because she pissed you off,” Mason grumbled. “She’s a challenge and you find challenges stimulating. It’s nothing sexual.”

  Oh, yeah?

  “Stop thinking about her,” he commanded, annoyed with himself, and grabbed his cell phone.

  He dialed Daphne’s number. The minute she spoke, he started talking and it took a second for him to realize he’d gotten her voice mail.

  “Daphne,” he said after the beep. “It’s Mason. I just arrived in Vegas. I’m thinking of you.”

  Even to his own ears the words sounded unconvincing.
He left her his number at the hotel and then hung up, feeling worse than he had before he’d called. He wished Daphne were here so he could remember exactly what she looked like. He hated that he couldn’t fill his mind with her instead of Charlee.

  “Concentrate on locating Gramps.”

  All right. He could keep his mind on the task at hand. Think.

  Maybelline probably lived right here in Vegas. And maybe Charlee had lied through those luscious lips of hers.

  What if, instead of holing up in some fishing retreat as her granddaughter claimed, Maybelline was actually cozied up in a love nest with Gramps? Why hadn’t he considered that before?

  Rummaging around in the nightstand, Mason located the phone book and flipped to the S’s. Ten seconds later he copied down Maybelline’s home address. Ten minutes after that, dressed in chinos, a starched white shirt, and loafers, he took the elevator to the lobby.

  Maybelline Sikes took a deep breath, smoothed nonexistent wrinkles from her navy blue slacks, and double-checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. She patted her short, stylish hair she kept dyed the same flame red color it had been in childhood and climbed out of her ebony Toyota Tundra pickup truck.

  Her heart gave an erratic little skip as she made her way up the sidewalk to Kelly’s tavern. If she hadn’t just undergone a complete physical and been pronounced as healthy as a woman half her age, Maybelline might have been worried. But turning sixty-three had nothing to do with her irregular pulse.

  Outside the bar, Maybelline hesitated, her courage gone. She was nervous. Damned nervous. Not just about seeing Nolan Gentry again, but also because of the bad news she had to deliver. The past had caught up with them both.

  “Go on,” she urged herself. “Do it. You’ve got no choice.”

  Straightening her shoulders, she shoved open the door and stepped inside. She blinked against the contrast of bright desert sunlight and dim, smoky bar. The door creaked shut behind her. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the place was deserted.

  Kelly, all muscles and tight black T-shirt, stood behind the bar buffing the counter. Barfly Bob, a perpetual regular with heavy red jowls and a bleary-eyed grin, sat on a bar stool nursing an Old Milwaukee.

  But it was the man at the corner table who drew Maybelline’s immediate interest.

  “Hey, Maybelline,” Kelly and Barfly Bob greeted her simultaneously.

  Seven years ago, she’d worked for Kelly, before she and Charlee had started the detective agency. Maybelline waved a hand, but her gaze riveted on the man she hadn’t seen for forty-seven years.

  The man who had once saved her life.

  She approached cautiously. He rose to his feet. The rolled-up sleeves of his blue dress shirt revealed still nicely muscled forearms for a man in his mid-sixties. He looked every inch the blueblood ex-actor with his perfect posture, commanding aura, and smart fashion sense.

  Looking at him now, no one would suspect that over four decades ago Nolan had worked as a wildcatter on an oil derrick side by side with Maybelline’s father. Only honed muscles and tanned skin gave even the faintest hint to his working-class past.

  Immediately, Maybelline regretted asking him to meet her at Kelly’s. From Nolan’s point of view, the place was beyond seedy. But she had needed somewhere neutral for the meeting and Kelly’s was safe.

  Their gazes met and Maybelline’s heart did the same swoony waltz it had done more than four decades ago when she’d walked out into the oil field with the brown paper bag lunch her daddy had forgotten and she’d made eye contact with the boss’s handsome son.

  She’d been thirteen. Nolan seventeen. He’d said “hi” to her and she’d been smitten, even though she’d known he was so far out of her league even a fairy godmother with a magic wand couldn’t grant her most fervent wish.

  Two years later, when he’d spotted her in town at the soda fountain and came over to buy her a Coke float, she’d just about died. Giggling, her friends had scattered, leaving them alone in the red vinyl booth.

  Searching for something to say to the rich handsome man seated across from her, Maybelline told him Lana Turner had been discovered in a soda fountain. Once she got started, her passion for the movies took over and she’d gone on to tell him her greatest dream was to become a Hollywood makeup artist. Nolan had confessed he wanted to be an actor.

  They’d talked for hours, until Nolan’s father had come into the diner, found them sitting together, and caused an ugly scene. He’d called her trailer trash and forbade Nolan from ever speaking to her again.

  “Maybelline,” Nolan said, bringing her back to the present, his voice husky.

  “Nolan,” she murmured.

  He smiled and his brown eyes crinkled with such joy, she caught her breath.

  “You’re prettier than ever.”

  In one precious minute Maybelline had the ridiculous whim everything was going to turn out all right. There she went again, dreaming of a fairy godmother.

  “And you’re full of horseshit.”

  Nolan’s grin widened. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still the same fiery, outspoken woman I remember.”

  With a flourish, he pulled out a chair for her and Maybelline sat. He hadn’t ordered a drink, she noticed and wondered how long he’d been there.

  He eased down across from her and she studied his face. The years had been kind to him and it occurred to her he’d probably had a few nips and tucks. Hey, if you could afford plastic surgery, more power to you.

  Nolan wore glasses now, but then again so did she. He wasn’t paunchy like many men his age and while he’d had some balding at the temples he still possessed a fine shock of silver hair. She remembered when his hair grew thick as underbrush and black as midnight. A strange aching tugged her stomach at the memory.

  All those years gone like fallen leaves.

  His gaze imprinted her face, sizing her up too. Self-consciously, she raised a hand to her cheek.

  Why hadn’t she worn a dress and jewelry and perfume? She hadn’t worried about her looks for almost two decades. She had believed she was long past the point of wanting to appear desirable for a man.

  There’s no fool like an old fool.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For coming to Vegas to see me. I couldn’t handle this over the phone or through the mail.”

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  Kelly appeared at the table. Maybelline was so wrapped up in staring at Nolan she didn’t notice the bartender approach and she jumped when he touched her shoulder. “What’ll you have, Maybell?”

  She looked at Nolan, and arched an eyebrow.

  “Pretty early in the day for me.” He raised a palm.

  “You might want something to help the bad news slide down easier.”

  Nolan grimaced. “Is it that gruesome?”

  Grimly, she nodded.

  “Bourbon,” Nolan said. “Two glasses.”

  After Kelly walked away, Nolan laid his hand, warm and rough and comforting, over hers. Something in her chest caught and hung.

  “It’s going to be okay, kiddo.” He winked. “We’ve survived worse.”

  Maybelline took a deep breath. “Better hold your judgment until after you’ve seen what’s in here.”

  She reached into her purse, took out a manila envelope, and handed her old friend a copy of the damning document that possessed the potential to destroy his entire family.

  Dimples.

  Charlee hadn’t bargained on dimples. A man that long-legged, that brown-eyed, that darned handsome simply had no business possessing dimples as deep as Lake Mead and in both cheeks too! The good looks fairy had been far too generous with Mason Gentry.

  Her knees were still weak. Damn him.

  She couldn’t stop dwelling on what had happened. How dare the arrogant, egotistic, rich, dimpled son of a bitch try to bribe her into ratting out the site of her grandmother’s cabin?

  The cheek. The gall. The sheer audacity!

  Jerk. Pinhead. Dillhole.

&n
bsp; She fumed around the office, working up a good head of steam.

  And then she started to worry.

  What if Mason was right? What if Maybelline and his grandfather had run off together? How ludicrous. Then again Maybelline had been acting rather odd lately herself. Plus, she’d taken off on her retreat almost a month earlier than usual.

  Charlee massaged her temple, which had been throbbing ever since she’d worn Maybelline’s glasses. She would love to pin all the blame on the bifocals, but Mason and his missing grandfather were as much the cause of her headache as the glasses.

  Ah, crud. She couldn’t calm down until she drove up to the cabin and made sure Maybelline was all right.

  She locked up the office, stopped at the Swiftie Mart around the corner for a fistful of Ibuprofen and a cherry coke. With the evening sun shining in her eyes, worsening her headache, she flipped down the visor and headed over to Maybelline’s place. She wanted to make sure her grandmother hadn’t slipped back into town without telling her before she made the trek up to the fishing cabin at Lake Mead.

  Seven years ago, when Charlee had moved into her own apartment, Maybelline sold the motor coach they’d called home ever since Charlee was five and had come to live with her. Her grandmother purchased a small lot in a retirement community, put up a nice prefabricated house on a slab, and settled down for the first time in nearly fifty years.

  It was almost six o’clock when Charlee turned onto the friendly little cul-de-sac and had to swerve to avoid a white four-door Chevy Malibu intent on hogging the narrow lane.

  The manufactured houses were inexpensive, but well maintained. Flowers flourished in window boxes, wind socks flew from weather vanes, white picket fences delineated property lines, pink flamingoes and kitschy plywood cutouts of ladies bending over to show their bloomers decorated freshly mowed lawns. A quiet, cozy place to enjoy one’s golden years.

  She knew something was very wrong the minute she spotted the door to Maybelline’s trailer hanging open a couple of inches. Instantly on alert, Charlee did not pull into the driveway, but instead kept driving and parked a few houses down. She leaped from the car, tugged a small thirty-eight automatic from the leg holster inside her boot, and cautiously approached Maybelline’s house.