License to Thrill Read online

  “Charlee?” he prodded, more irritating than a pebble in her boot. “Who are we going to see?”

  Don’t tell him a damned thing.

  She pretended to concentrate on navigating the Corvette around a slow-moving eighteen-wheeler, but he didn’t buy her stall tactics.

  “If the matter concerns my grandfather, I have a right to know.”

  As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t disagree. After all, she had no real reason to believe Mason was anything other than what he claimed. Charlee reluctantly relented.

  “We’re going to see my father.”

  “From the tightness in your voice I’m guessing you two don’t get along so well.”

  “You might say that.” Charlee gripped the steering wheel far tighter than necessary. “Let’s just hope my old man isn’t involved in what’s going on between our grandparents.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Charlee took a deep breath. “No.”

  To her surprise, he nodded and said, “Fair enough.”

  Mason certainly didn’t seem like the sort of guy to let things pass easily and Charlee shot him a pensive glance. Maybe something in her body language warned him off.

  Whenever Elwood popped into her brain, she couldn’t help tensing up. She understood even without the help of a Freudian psychologist that the roots of her prejudice against wealthy, long-legged, matinee-idol-smiling, beard-stubble-sporting men started with her father.

  Mason’s decision not to pressure her had a tongueloosening effect. Charlee had no idea what possessed her but she found herself saying, “Don’t get me wrong. I love my father. I mean he is my father after all, but a stand-up guy he ain’t.”

  “We all have family issues.”

  Charlee laughed. “Yeah. Well, some of us have issues and then some of us have issues.”

  “Rotten childhood?”

  “Rotten isn’t the word for it.”

  Why was she yammering like an Oprah guest? She wasn’t a poor-me-I-never-got-over-being-mistreated-by-my-parent type. And she most certainly wasn’t a whiner.

  She pressed the tip of her tongue against the roof of her mouth to keep from speaking, but then Mason reached over, flicked off the radio, and casually let his fingers trail over the back of her hand. She didn’t know if he’d touched her on purpose or not, but a hint of sympathy was all it took. How truly pathetic was she? Words erupted from her in a mindless purge of verbiage.

  “Once upon a time, my father, Elwood Sikes, was the best Elvis impersonator in Vegas.” Charlee left the Strip and downshifted as she slowed for a yield sign. “This wasn’t long after the real Elvis died and Elwood’s career blazed hot, hot, hot.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Oh, he was a charming bastard. Had tons of women flocking after him, which was the main reason my mother didn’t marry him even though she was pregnant with me. She might have been a naive Louisiana Cajun in over her head in sin city, but she wasn’t dumb.”

  Charlee waved a hand. Had she ever told her story to anyone? She couldn’t remember. She wanted to shut up, to keep her private life private, but spewing out her anger felt so good, she just kept blabbing.

  “Anyway, my father fell for his own publicity hype. He believed the money he raked in would last forever. He bought a pink Cadillac and a fancy house with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and he wore diamond rings on every finger. The typical cliché. I’m told he bought me tons of toys but I don’t remember.”

  “It must have been a very exciting time for him,” Mason said.

  “Too exciting. He started gambling. Caught the fever and lost every penny. After that he became real friendly with the whiskey bottle and they canned him from the Elvis gig for showing up drunk. Everything was repossessed. He lost it all. The money, the house, the women. He simply couldn’t deal with the failure. He’s spent the rest of his life trying to get it back by chasing get-rich-quick schemes and getting thrown in jail on a semiregular basis.” Charlee sighed. “And I’ve spent a small mint bailing him out.”

  Mason ticked his tongue in sympathy.

  “He littered my childhood with a string of broken promises. One time he swore he’d take me to McDonald’s for my fifth birthday. My mother dressed me up in a pink satin dress and black patent leather Mary Janes. I can still remember the dress had a white sash with blue flowers. I waited and I waited and I waited, but Elwood never came.”

  “Must have been pretty difficult for you.”

  Charlee shook her head in denial. “Hell, I was used to him standing me up. But his reappearing acts were even worse. He’d show up, usually drunk, with some big-haired, big-chested bimbo who he expected me to call Mama on his arm and a wad of ill-gotten cash in his pocket.”

  “I can’t even imagine.”

  “Worst thing, after my mother died, Elwood just dumped me on Maybelline. Not that I regret being raised by my grandmother,” she added swiftly. “It’s just I’d always hoped…” she trailed off.

  A fire-engine siren shrieked nearby. Thank God for the interruption, otherwise she might have told him every sordid detail of her painful past.

  “Better pull over,” Mason advised. “I think they’re coming this way.”

  She looked in the rearview mirror at the same time the fire truck rounded the corner. Startled, she jerked to a stop at the curb and realized her hands were shaking. Not from the unexpected arrival of the emergency vehicle but from the sheer volume of her verbal diarrhea. She could not have shocked herself more if she’d stripped off her shirt and flashed him her boobies.

  The car idled softly, accentuating the quietness between them.

  “Are you okay?” Mason asked, his voice heavy with concern. He touched her again and there was no mistaking the intent this time—firmer, lingering, his thumb gently rubbing her knuckles.

  Charlee jerked her hand away and looked into his face. She stared at his wide, generous mouth and found herself wondering if he was a good kisser. Startled, she focused her gaze on the road.

  An odd twinge twisted through her. A strange mix of anxiety, gratitude, and uncertainty.

  What in the hell was going on here?

  You’re just worried about Maybelline. Remember, you’re highly susceptible to brown-eyed, handsome men. Nail your guard back up, pronto.

  A second fire truck zoomed by and then a third.

  Struggling to appear nonchalant, Charlee tugged her hand out from under Mason’s and slowly pulled the Corvette back into traffic. She smelled smoke in the air and the odor thickened the closer they came to the rundown apartment complex where her father lived.

  By the time they turned onto her father’s block, Charlee’s heart hammered hard even before she spotted the flames licking brightly against the night sky. Dread weighed her down at the sight of firemen scurrying across the lawn with fire hoses and axes.

  Apartment residents stood to one side staring owleyed as their homes flashed in a crescendo of sparks. Gawkers stopped to rubberneck.

  From the corner of her eye, Charlee spied a white, four-door Chevy Malibu easing slowly down the street. She parked in the lot of a nearby dry cleaners and, without even thinking about Mason, climbed out of the car and beelined over to the small apartment complex.

  Please let Elwood be okay, she prayed.

  She tried to approach one of the firemen, but he brusquely waved her off. A ruddy-faced police officer with a Boston accent came over to escort her across the street with the other bystanders.

  “This way, miss.”

  “My father,” she said. “He lives in apartment 16c.”

  “Everyone’s been evacuated. There’ve been no casualties. If your father is here, he’ll be in the crowd. Now step aside.”

  “What happened?” Charlee fisted her hands. “I have a right to know.”

  “Step aside,” the policeman repeated with a stern frown.

  The smoke, the fire, the heat, the noise, and the chaos overwhelmed her.

  Dammit, Elwood, where are you?

/>   She wanted to argue with the cop, to demand he tell her something more, but she couldn’t find her tongue. She simply stared at the dramatic flames scampering across the roof of the apartment building and she felt all the courage drain from her body.

  “Excuse me, officer,” Mason interrupted. He moved closer to the man, lowered his head, and spoke so low Charlee couldn’t hear what he said.

  What magic he wrought, she did not know, but a few minutes later he walked over and took her elbow. “Let’s go back to the car.”

  “Why? I want to know what’s happening.”

  “Just do as I say.”

  “Listen here, Gentry…” Charlee balked, grateful to have someone to take her anxiety out on.

  “Now is not the time to straddle your high horse. I’ve got unfortunate news.”

  “What?” Her contrariness vanished. She gripped Mason’s forearm and imagined the worst.

  “The fire originated in your father’s apartment.”

  Charlee blinked. “Is he…hurt?”

  Mason shook his head. “The apartment was empty when the firemen arrived.”

  “Thank God.”

  “They believe the fire was arson.”

  “Arson?”

  “I hate to tell you, but the police suspect your father intentionally started the blaze.”

  Charlee sank into the chair in her office and forced herself not to bite her fingernails. She balled her hands into fists and dropped them into her lap. She absolutely refused to jump to conclusions about Elwood. Just because his apartment caught fire didn’t mean he was up to his old tricks.

  Believe that and there’s a bridge in Brooklyn someone is dying to sell you.

  Sighing, she flicked on Maybelline’s computer and leaned back in the chair as she waited for the hard drive to boot up.

  After leaving the scene of the fire, Mason had insisted on going back to her grandmother’s trailer to help her clean up the mess and repair the broken bedroom windowpane. She’d been touched by his offer and then angry with herself for going all soft and gushy inside just because some guy did a decent thing.

  Plus, she couldn’t stop thinking about the way his hard, lean back—all sinewy and masculine—had felt beneath her when she’d knocked him to the floor and saved him from the gunman’s bullet. Even now, hours later, the memory of his body caused the moisture to evaporate from her mouth and her pulse to speed up.

  She wasn’t falling for his charms. No how. No way. She understood that old song and dance. Guys were oh-so-delightful at first, at least until they landed you in their beds. After they got what they wanted, it was so long, Charlee, been nice knowing you, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

  It was closing in on two A.M. but she was too wired to sleep. After dropping Mason off at the Bellagio, she schlepped down to the office to hunt through Maybelline’s files in search of clues.

  But instead of probing the database on the hard drive, she found herself logging onto the Internet. She never consciously decided to Google him, but the next thing she knew, there she was, typing Mason’s name into the search engine.

  And up popped a string of references.

  Links to newspaper articles and magazine interviews and high-society pages. She discovered his family held a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

  When she stumbled across a detailed listing of the numerous companies they owned—including a silver mine in New Mexico, a flagship hotel in the Bahamas, and a top accounting firm in Hollywood—Charlee realized his family was richer than God and she was in far deeper trouble than she ever imagined.

  Damn her and her illogical Prince Charming complex.

  She found a photograph of Mason escorting a glossily beautiful blonde to some debutante shindig and the pinch of jealousy biting into her stomach scared her.

  Good gravy. What did she have to be jealous of? She could never compete with such a woman. Nor did she want to. She’d had her fill of rich men.

  Briefly, she thought of Gregory Blankensonship, the first man she’d ever loved, and winced. Would she ever recover from his betrayal?

  Oh, stop whining. You’ve got work to do.

  Determined, she logged off the Internet, picked up the telephone, and began calling hospitals, hotels, airlines, and bus stations. Maybelline, Nolan, and Elwood simply couldn’t have disappeared into thin air.

  She might not be lucky in love, but she was a damned fine private investigator. And one way or another, she would find them.

  Mason had come to Vegas to find his grandfather and drag him back home in time to prevent his brother from taking sole credit for closing the biggest deal in the history of Gentry Enterprises. Retrieving Gramps should have been quick, clean, and simple.

  But instead of achieving his clear-cut goal, a little more than twelve hours after arriving in town, Mason found himself embroiled in a royal mess featuring one testy lady P.I., her missing granny, a ransacked trailer house, a disgruntled gunman, and a very suspicious fire. What he couldn’t figure out was how Gramps fit into the chaos.

  Mason had tumbled into bed, certain he would fall asleep within minutes, but slumber eluded him. Two-thirty and he lay wide awake listening to the bedside clock tick off the seconds. Dammit. Charlee had promised to come around for him at six A.M. SO they could start searching for their grandparents again.

  Charlee.

  Now there was one hell of a woman. Tough and unflinching, she didn’t coddle her fears or back away from the truth.

  It was a thrill watching her mind work. He could actually see her mental cogs whirling. It was in the tilt of her jaw, the furrow of her brow, the tightening of her facial muscles. The way she focused on whatever task lay at hand was a thing of beauty.

  And being with her was strangely exhilarating. As if by proxy her fervor would rub off on him. He wondered if she realized how the intensity came over her. The way her green eyes changed colors and took on a lively ferocity when she was on the hunt.

  She was a woman warrior, proud and strong. He thought of the way she’d looked at Maybelline’s house, gun in hand, a determined set to her chin. Suddenly his senses were as full of her as they had been at the moment the gunman fired.

  The womanly aroma of her hung in his nose, the imprint of her firm body lingered against his back, the sound of her rich, smoldering voice haunted his ears. She stirred his imagination and aroused a dormant passion he never realized he possessed.

  He liked her long, lean limbs and the bronzy glow of her skin. He liked the straightforward scent of her—honeysuckle soap and crisp spray starch. Not frilly or overdone. Just clean and honest and free.

  And her luscious tresses. Masses of straight black hair hanging down her back in a curtain of sheer delight or bouncing provocatively when pulled back in a sleek ponytail. Too bad…

  Too bad what, Gentry?

  Too damned bad he was stewing in his hormones. Charlee Champagne was strictly off-limits for so many reasons he couldn’t begin to count. Groaning, Mason stuffed a pillow over his head and willed his mind empty.

  He must have finally dozed off, because he woke with a jerk when the telephone rang. Blindly, he fumbled for the receiver in the dark and brought it to his ear.

  “Lo,” he mumbled.

  “Gentry, it’s Charlee.”

  As if he didn’t recognize her sexy, smoky voice. “What time is it?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “What are you doing up?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Go away for a couple of hours, will you?”

  “Can’t. Got some hot news.” He could tell from the thrill in her tone she was jazzed up. A cougar on the prowl.

  Shaking his head to clear away the cobwebs of aborted sleep, Mason propped himself against the headboard. “I’m listening.”

  “I did some digging and I found out Nolan and Maybelline booked a red-eye flight to L.A. last night.”

  “They’re in L.A.?”

  “No, they never got on t
he plane.”

  “So they’re still in Vegas?”

  “That’s what I aim to find out. I’m headed over to the airport to interview the gate agent and figured you might wanna come along.”

  “Sure. Sure.” Mason yawned and ran a hand through his hair.

  “See you there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up the phone.

  Twenty minutes later, Mason parked his Bentley in the infield parking garage, then walked over to wait on the curb outside the terminal.

  Charlee screeched her Corvette to a stop in a passenger loading zone and leaped from the car. She wore a straw white Stetson cocked back on her head and twin braids streamed down her back. She looked absolutely adorable; although he had the impression she was shooting for badass. Daphne would proclaim her a fashion disaster, but Mason appreciated that she dressed the way she pleased, in-vogue styles be damned.

  He pointed at the NO LONG-TERM PARKING sign. “You’re not going to leave your car here.”

  “Nobody’s gonna tow me away at this time of the morning.” Her fast-talking disregard for the posted sign told him she was wired on adrenaline and so eager to leap into the investigation she couldn’t be bothered looking for a parking space.

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “I’m on the hunt. I need my vehicle at the ready in case I need to make a quick exit.”

  “Parking in a passenger loading zone and risking being towed is not the way to achieve your goal.”

  “Oh, hush. How are they going to know I’m not loading passengers? We won’t be long. Come on.”

  Mason didn’t budge. “Charlee, move your car,” he insisted.

  “Relax, Gentry. Boy, you are uptight. Love the sheet creases by the way.” On her way past him, she reached up and lightly fingered his cheek.

  Her touch burned electric. Mason growled, desperate to deny the tingle of awareness warming his face.

  Blithely, she stalked into the concourse and he had no choice but to follow or get left behind. Fine, let her car get towed.

  In spite of himself, Mason found his eyes locked on the sassy sway of her blue-jeaned behind. Good thing she wasn’t his girlfriend. They would clash like cymbals over every little thing. He couldn’t imagine living with someone so stubborn.