Redeemed By The Cowgirl

Three

Cash studied the monitors in the Thunder River Casino’s security room. He’d manually added photos of the Rowland clan to the facial recognition program. He didn’t trust Roxanne and trusted her family even less. That slip of the tongue indicating she might be followed could be paranoia, real fear or calculated intent. He leaned toward calculation. She’d certainly played him when she was a teenager.

He almost missed her when she walked in. This was not the woman he’d seen in Vegas. Everything about her was toned down—hair, makeup, clothing. He had to look twice to be sure. Then he checked her ID photo. Yes. Same woman. He wondered again who the real Roxanne Rowland was. The ID and the woman waiting at the hostess station in Cyrano’s, or the femme fatale in a little black dress and four-inch designer stilettos. Tonight, she wore tight jeans tucked into blinged-out Western boots and a body-hugging sweater belted with leather and silver.

“Keep your eyes open for any of the suspects,” Cash ordered the security supervisor.

“Yes, sir. Monitor three is the camera for her table.”

Cash’s breath came quick and sharp as he watched the hostess escort Roxanne to the table. Concentrating, he leveled out his nerves. This was business. Nothing more. He needed to stay focused. Moments later, a waitress arrived, took her order, then delivered what looked like plain iced tea.

Over the next hour, Roxanne nursed the tea, declined several offers from men and fended off increasingly impatient attentions from the waitress. She became jumpy, staring at the entrance and coming to attention every time someone entered, and constantly checked her watch. Interesting. She looked at her watch a final time, finished the tea and left a tip far larger than the cost of the drink.

Cash smiled, feeling predatory. Showtime.

Roxanne was looking over her shoulder when she plowed into him just outside Cyrano’s entrance. Reflex made him grab her arms to steady her, but something far more perverse had him hauling her up against his chest. She held still for a long moment, then pushed her arms between them and attempted to shove him away. He allowed only enough room between them that he could look down into her face.

Those amber eyes of hers widened and she wet her bottom lip with her tongue. He corralled his libido and pasted a disinterested expression on his face. Snagging her hand, he tugged her along as he returned to the security area. Two uniformed guards waited at the secured door and escorted them to a small interview room. Roxanne’s hand tightened convulsively on his as he led her inside. Interesting.

“Have a seat, Ms. Rowland.” He held out a chair for her and waited until she sat down before asking, “Why are you here?”

* * *

Roxie did her best to curb her panic. She hid her hands under the table, gripping her thighs to control their trembling. Swallowing around the lump clogging her throat, she prayed her voice remained steady. “Why am I here?”

“Easy question, Roxanne.”

“No, not really.”

“So enlighten me.”

Enlighten him? Easy for him to say. She needed to understand what was happening—why it was happening to explain her reasons for contacting him. “Do you have a couple of hours?”

He arched one brow, and darn if that didn’t set hummingbirds loose in her stomach. He was just as dark and sexy and...no, not debonair. He was too intense for debonair, too cynical. Cash didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His piercing gaze and that oh-so-eloquent eyebrow spoke volumes.

“You probably don’t remember me.” Why would he? She’d been a gangly teenager, just turned sixteen, with wild red hair and more than her share of freckles. Mortified, she’d sat in that interview room for almost twenty hours until a fast-talking lawyer in a cheap suit had shown up with the headmistress. Sometimes, Cash had sat across from her, never speaking, just watching. Other times, he’d stood in a corner, shoulder braced against the wall, legs crossed at the ankle and arms either crossed over a very muscular chest or shoved into the front pockets of tailored slacks. Her teenage self had totally fallen for him. Her grown-up self was torn between that remembered hormonal hero worship and total terror.

She huffed out a breath, placing her fisted hands on the table. “My father is a thief.” She didn’t expect the sharp burst of laughter her statement evoked.

“There’s no need to be rude, Mr. Barron.” Heat suffused her cheeks but she ignored it. “I didn’t have to call you.”

“We would have tracked you down eventually.”

“I’m not that hard to find.”

He slid a hip onto the corner of the table and stared at her. “Last time we sat in a room like this, your name was Anne Landerson.”

Her lips pursed at that and she quickly smoothed them out to a hard line as his eyes focused on her mouth. “That’s the name I was enrolled with at that school. My father told me it was for security reasons.”

Cash laughed again, but this time, the sound was dark and derisive. “Oh, this ought to be good. Spell it out for me, Red.”

“Don’t call me that.”

And there went his eyebrow again. “I...didn’t spend much time with my father or brothers growing up. I was left with a family called the Millers until I was old enough for boarding school. I had...” She wondered how to phrase this part. “I was told not use my real name and had a false birth certificate. I had no clue what my father did. I only knew that he traveled, was very dashing and mysterious, and on more than one occasion, I imagined he was an international spy.”

His other eyebrow rose, accompanied by a twist at the corner of his mouth. Cash’s expression caused her to feel dumb about those childish fantasies. What little girl wanted to believe her father was a criminal?

“On my sixteenth birthday, a box arrived. As I’d never received a gift from my father before, this was a momentous occasion.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

Ooh. The sarcasm fairly dripped from those three words. “For a girl who had little contact with her family, who had never celebrated birthdays or Christmas, it was.”

He shifted off the table, moved to the corner and assumed a posture she’d grown familiar with. Something jiggled his jacket pocket. He reached in and withdrew his cell phone, presumably to send and receive texts. She couldn’t keep herself from admiring his long, nimble fingers, even though her blush deepened as her thoughts wandered down completely inappropriate paths.

Cash Barron was fantasy-inducing. Tall, broad-shouldered, with long legs, a slim waist. She could attest to the muscularity of his chest from her stolen moment of weakness earlier that evening. She couldn’t help but be struck by the black hair, brown eyes the color of dark-roast coffee and a sculpted face that would make a fashion model jealous. When she’d looked up his bio before calling, Roxie had been shocked to learn he wasn’t all that much older than her. At sixteen, she’d been a starry-eyed girl and he’d been very much a man. Confident, handsome, strong. She’d sat there in that room, dreaming about kissing his full lips, about falling into his arms, about... Jerking back from the sexy images, she deep-breathed through a slight panic attack when she discovered him watching her intently. The glint in his eyes was...unsettling.

“So, you received a gift from your mysterious father.”

Right back to business. This was good. She should concentrate on business, not...other things. She centered her thoughts. “Yes. I was excited when I opened it. I found what looked like costume jewelry, which I thought odd, given my age and the fact that we’d had little interaction over the years. And then I found the little picture. I thought it was a print—ballerinas in tutus, and I was thrilled. I wanted to be a ballerina at the time, despite the school’s dance master rolling his eyes whenever I attempted to dance in toe shoes.”

Cash snorted and she glared at him. “I was a lonely girl with no particular talent, Mr. Barron. I was touched because I believed the picture was my father’s way of acknowledging my dreams. I didn’t read the note attached to the package until later, when it was too late.”

“Okay. I’ll bite. What did it say?”

And why did her thoughts go right back down that dark road to sexy city? Biting was a big no-no. She cleared her throat. “My father told me to stash the box and keep it safe. I was never meant to open it. It never even occurred to him that I might mistake it for a gift. He didn’t remember it was my birthday.”

Roxie lifted her head, her gaze colliding with his. “I discovered on my sixteenth birthday that, not only was my father a wanted criminal, but he had so little regard for me that he couldn’t be bothered to remember my birthday. As you know, the jewelry turned out to be real and that sweet little print of the ballerinas turned out to be an original Degas, scammed from an eighty-year-old woman by a smooth-talking stranger, according to the police.” She dropped her hands to her lap and wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans before continuing. “The next day, I returned to the Millers. I used my birth name after that.”

“Want to explain how you ended up here?”

She contemplated that question for a moment. “Here here or here in general?”

“In Oklahoma. In Oklahoma City. Why did you go to UCO?”

“Oh. I took online classes and got my GED when I was seventeen. I checked out a directory of American colleges and universities from the library, closed my eyes, opened the book and stabbed my finger on the page.”

His dubious expression said it all. “That’s the truth, Mr. Barron.”

“Why were you in Vegas?”

“I don’t really know.” She canted her chin at a stubborn angle as her hands gripped the edge of the table. “The itinerary, hotel reservations and boarding pass showed up in my inbox. A weekend jaunt in Vegas, all expenses paid. The email said I’d won a contest. I checked with the airline. The ticket was real so I had no reason to think it was a setup until my brother Brax met me at the airport. I was given a bag of clothes from a high-end boutique, told to—and I quote—doll myself up. On the way down in the elevator, Brax told me I was to...” Her voice faltered and she swallowed down a wave of nausea. “They had a mark. Max was working him on the casino floor. I was supposed to...to be nice to him.”

“What does that mean?”

She clasped her hands and stared at them, unable to meet Cash’s gaze any longer. “They wanted me to get him to his room, to...” She had to swallow again.

“I get the picture.” His voice sounded gruff but she still couldn’t face him.

“The lights went out and then...”

“And then I almost caught you.”

“Yes.”

* * *

Cash almost believed her—that lonely little girl act was guaranteed to play on a man’s protective instincts. If this were a movie, he’d nominate her for an Oscar. She was one terrific actress. The blushes, the swallows, the trembling hands fisted together were all perfect touches.

“Why is your family targeting Barron properties?” He moved closer, then dropped into the chair across from her.

Roxanne’s head jerked up and for a fleeting moment, he wondered if he’d taken her by surprise. A look of consternation quickly followed the one of shock created by his question. Cash had interviewed a lot of people in his life. Instinct insisted this girl was exactly what she seemed—a sweet kid too naive for her own good. But experience persisted in believing her to be as big a con as the rest of her family.

Maximilian Rowland was a consummate thief and scoundrel who had raised his sons in his own mold. Why would such a man not utilize every tool he had—including his beautiful daughter? He shoved the parallel to his own father and brothers to the very back of his mind.

“I...didn’t know they were.” Her eyebrows pulled into an intriguing vee above the bridge of her scrunched-up nose. She looked cutely perplexed. “I suppose that rather falls in line with why I contacted you.”

Leaning back in the chair, he waited for her to continue.

“My father is a...criminal, Mr. Barron. We’ve been mostly estranged my entire life, but especially since that one incident. My brothers have contacted me periodically, checking up on me, occasionally sending money—which I sent back.” She hurried to add that bit of information and again, he almost believed her. “Anyway, the trip to Las Vegas was a complete surprise.”

She blinked at him, still portraying her innocence. “So you had no idea you’d be...” He searched for a word. “Working with them?”

“No! None at all. But...” Her voice trailed off and she wouldn’t look directly at him.