Lady Luck (Colorado Mountain #3)(9)

As the elevator went up, I waited for them to fade, I wanted them to fade but they didn’t fade. They stayed burning hot and deep and I’d never experienced anything like it. I didn’t even know what it was. I just knew it was profound. I knew it was life-altering. I knew somehow that, even if the burn was to fade, I’d never forget that elevator ride my whole life.

The elevator stopped, the doors slid open and, my mind still on the burn, I didn’t think as I followed him out, down the hall to a room. He used the keycard and entered, not holding the door open for me.

Mindlessly, I pushed the door open as it started to close and followed.

The door closed behind me.

He dumped his duffle on the low, wide shelf opposite the bed that was meant for luggage, one side of that shelf going up with three drawers under it, a big, flat screen TV on top of it, the other side doing the same with a cabinet under it probably containing a mini-bar, an attractive leatherette holder on top holding the TV remote.

Then he immediately zipped the duffle open. I came to a halt at the mouth of the hall that led into the room and righted my bag on the floor at my side.

My mind went off the slowly fading burn of his touch at my back as it registered on me it was a nice room, really, really nice. It was large, larger than I expected, larger than I knew hotel rooms could be. The furniture was stylish, the wood gleaming, all of it obviously exceptionally clean. There was a downy comforter with an attractive cover on the huge bed, not a thin bedspread. There were even toss pillows. Two sweep-lined armchairs at either side of a table at the back in one corner by the window, a standing lamp rounding out the seating area, an elegant desk with a lamp on top facing the room at a diagonal in the other corner

In fact, I’d never been in a nicer room.

Actually, I’d been in very few hotel rooms at all in my thirty-four years.

Ronnie had promised a lot of good times in fabulous places and, before he gave me his empty promises, there was a time in our life when his future was so bright, this room would have been a joke to us. Our future held travel all over and everywhere we’d have the best of the best. The best rooms. The best food. The best champagne. The finest clothes. Sweet rides. Big houses. Cleaning ladies. We were going to live large. He told me I would drip gold. He meant it. He loved me that much, I would drip gold. He would make that happen for me.

Then he f**ked it all up.

I didn’t need gold, I just needed him. But still, he f**ked it all up in the end; he f**ked it up so badly, I didn’t even have him.

I came out of my reverie when I heard something hit surface and my eyes focused on Walker.

Then I felt them get wide.

He’d dug into the bag Shift packed for him and he was currently putting fat rolls of crisp, fresh bills wrapped tight in rubber bands on the wood above the mini-bar cabinet attached to the luggage shelf. The first roll had a twenty on the outside of it. The second, another twenty. The third, a fifty.

At the fifty, my breath started sticking in my throat.

The fourth, more twenties.

Then he came out with a gun clip and it clattered on the wood by the bills as he dropped it there.

My breathing stopped.

Another gun clip. Another roll of fifties. A box of ammo. Another roll of twenties.

Then a gun.

I sucked in air.

“Um, darling?” I called on the exhale. “I’m thinking we need a family meeting.”

Just his head turned, his body stayed bent over the bag and his light brown, almond-shaped, curly-lashed eyes hit mine. As usual, he did not speak.

I tipped my head to the unit. “What’s with the bank and the firepower?”

His eyes stayed on me. Then he straightened and turned to me.

I braced in order not to flee though I didn’t know why I didn’t attempt escape, probably because he’d proved his hands were fast and I didn’t want to find out if his legs were just as fast.

He still didn’t speak.

I carried on. “I mean, I’m no parole officer but it’s my understanding ex-cons aren’t allowed to be armed.”

He finally spoke. “You don’t have a record.”

I felt my head jerk at the same time I was certain my eyes bugged out.

Then I breathed, “What?”

“Hit trouble, the .38 is yours.”

At this juncture, I felt it was time to share.

I took two steps toward him and stopped.

“As I told you during our last and only conversation, Shift knows my boundaries. Any trouble we could,” I lifted up my hands and his beautiful eyes moved to them as I did air quotation marks and said, “‘hit’,” then I dropped my hands and his eyes came back to mine as I continued, “that would require a .38 and a half a dozen wads of cash is not within my acceptable boundaries.”

He stared at me.

Then he walked the four steps to me (that, for my legs, would probably be around seven) and then I found my purse being slid off my shoulder. I watched with no small amount of concern as he dug in it and was somewhat relieved when he pulled out my phone. He turned, tossed my bag across the room to the bed then turned back to me, flipped the phone open, used his thumb then put it to his ear.

I waited as it rang. So did he. Then he flipped it closed, opened it again then hit more buttons and put it to his ear.

I waited. So did he. Then he flipped it closed, opened it and repeat.