Page 1 of Wild Card

Chapter One

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“Life is a gamble.”

– Muhammad Ali

“Damn it.”

If tripping over one’s own feet was ever elevated to an Olympic sport, Jen Thorne was sure she’d take home a neck dripping with medals.

Not in her cards tonight. Not even the wildest ones in the deck.

That fact was as cold as the marble floor with which she still lay face-to-face. And the shots of subtle laughter throughout the room. Correction: the salon. As in, the wedding salon that rivaled European cathedrals for gilt and fairytale glens for beauty. Mr. Nyte, the mysterious owner of the Nyte Hotel and Casino, had spared no expense making this the most coveted place to tie the knot in Las Vegas. That included—as Jen learned while confirming she hadn’t broken her damn leg at the rehearsal for her best friend’s wedding—hand-carved angels at the base of each pew.

From mud pies in the schoolyard to naked cherubs and marble floors. Tess Lesange, you’ve come a long way, baby.

It seemed only yesterday that Jen was joining Tess for their favorite recess pastime; now her best friend was marrying one of the world’s rising billionaires. Dan Colton, the golden-haired hunk who helmed Colton Steel and its gazillion subsidiaries, stood at the end of the aisle practically taking a bath in happiness. Though Tess now lived in Atlanta with her man, Vegas had won out as an easier destination to access for most of the wedding guests, especially Tess’s Vegas-based family and friends.

But Colton and his movie star perfection hadn’t been the cause of Jen’s stumble. Nor was she enraptured by the salon’s buttressed ceiling, supporting a thousand fiber-optic lights to give the illusion of suspended stars. It also wasn’t the banks of red and gold roses, filling the air with their heavenly scent, or the harp and piano players that created one of the most beautiful versions of Canon in D perhaps ever played.

She’d stumbled because of the man sitting third pew from the front, third position in.

Third pew.

Third in.

“Holy. Shit.” She muttered it while glancing up again, confirming that the man of all her erotic fantasies was indeed right here, right now. Uhhhh, yep. And yep.

That presented the next challenge. She had about three seconds to come up with the cleverest one-liner a woman had ever issued after tumbling ass over elbows in a pair of custom-designed Louboutins.

That was how it was supposed to happen, right? Out would pop her inner Sofía Vergara, giving up the va-va-voom to make everyone dissolve in laughter—and entice Sam Mackenna to look at her in all the right ways. Perfect. Anytime you want, Sofía. Make it happen, girl. Sam’s waiting.

Sam Mackenna. The Highland warrior on generous loan to this century as one of the RAF’s top fighter pilots. Who took her breath away with his mastery of an F-15 as easily as he did walking into her little office every day, turning Air Force Base Nellis into a perfect stand-in for a Camelot courtyard itself. Whose serious gray eyes were usurped by his deep-dimpled grin. Who had enough thick, ginger hair to entice her imagination in a thousand ways—and a body so sinewy and athletic, it stirred a thousand more ideas after that. Ideas that made her knees weak…and her pussy pulse.

Like it did right now.

“Holy. Shit.”

It deserved repeating.

He was here. Really here.

And Sofía wasn’t coming to her rescue—though somebody sure laughed somewhere. Giggled, to be exact—with sources as easy to recognize as her fogged breath on the floor. Mattie and Viv Lesange, Tess’s sisters, were a pair as different from each other as Dickens and Dave Barry, unless the task at hand was exploiting someone’s weakness.

And Sam Mackenna was sure as hell her weakness.

“Mouse?”

Hell.

She knew only one person who pronounced the word like moose—and flipped her heart over in the doing. A tiny glance upward had the damn thing doing handsprings against her ribs. “Sam.” Great. She even squeaked it like a rodent. “Please—” Just go away. Let me die in mortification. Alone.

“You need a hand?”

“No.” Especially not when you look good enough to make my damn toe hairs tremble. She’d seen him in civvies before but his normal jeans and T-shirt combo hadn’t prepared her for this: a gray sport coat and white dress shirt tucked into black slacks that sheathed his long legs in all the right ways. Damn. Business casual, meet your poetic perfection. “And don’t call me that.”

“You like it when I call you that.” He sounded confused, even a little hurt. Right. Like a demi-god needed the validation of a paper pusher like her.

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