Love Takes All

The cards are dealt. Now let the game of passion begin…

Architect Hunter Russell’s grandmother just won a Reno casino in a high-stakes poker game! And she wants Hunter to help renovate it. It’s a crazy idea, and he is just about to tell her so—until he meets the stunning young woman who is his grandmother’s new business partner. Suddenly Hunter is tempted to say yes.

Lydia Montgomery has lived the life of a trophy wife. Now she’s a trophy widow, with a young daughter to support, longing for independence and purpose. The last thing she needs is another strong-willed man in her life. But Hunter’s surprisingly sensual touch, an intoxicating mix of desire and tenderness, is making her reconsider.

Can a man who has always been alone, and a woman who has never stood on her own, take the biggest gamble of all…together?

“Your parents were pretty controlling from what you’ve said. Miss E is just another form of control.”

That was a fair statement. “I thought we were just going to be friends. I had no idea we were going to be business partners, and I’ll be honest, this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.” She splashed at the water with her feet, too aware of the warmth of his body next to her.

“Miss E is like that, helping you come to the right conclusion, which is right in line with hers.”

“You’re being kind of harsh about your grandmother.”

“I’ve known her longer than you have,” he said with a grin.

They fell into silence. A cool wind blew in down the side of the mountain, and Lydia shivered. He put an arm around her and she found herself leaning into his warmth. She wasn’t expecting him to kiss her, but his lips on hers were warm and inviting. She’d kissed so few men before that she had wondered what it would be like to kiss him, and now she knew.

She pushed him away and scrambled to her feet and fled to the hotel without a look backward.

J.M. JEFFRIES

is the collaboration between two women who are lifelong romance-aholics. Jacqueline Hamilton grew up believing that life should always have a happy ending. Being a military brat, she has lived in some of the most romantic places in the world. An almost lawyer, Jackie decided to chuck it all, live her dream and become a writer. Miriam Pace grew up believing in fairy tales. She found her prince charming and has been married to him for thirty-seven years. Now a granny, Miriam reads fairy tales to her grandchildren and is looking forward to baby Pace, who is due soon.

Love Takes All

J.M. Jeffries

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Dear Reader,

Life’s a gamble. You have to know when to play the hand dealt you or throw it in and start over. You need to know when to take action and when to stand back. On the turn of a card, you can win a casino or lose a fortune. Reno, Nevada, may lack the luster of Vegas, but at heart it’s still a rip-roaring frontier town.

Lydia Montgomery has spent her life bending to the will of others and now she has a chance to start over. As part owner in the Mariposa Hotel and Casino, she is hungrily looking toward her future. Hunter Russell is reluctant to take risks, but when his grandmother needs him, he puts aside everything and joins her in Reno.

Join Lydia and Hunter as they deal the cards and win at the game of love.

Much love,

Jackie and Miriam

J.M. Jeffries

Jeff and Erin, Miriam and Peter, you make beautiful grandbabies. Thank you for all the riches and love you bring to me. Mom.

To my wonderful family: Thank you for your love, support and patience. Love, Jackie.

To the next generation: Frederik, Kathryn and baby Pace (about to arrive in the world), may you each find your heart’s desire.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Prologue

Lydia Montgomery sat in the darkened gallery leaning slightly forward to peer through the clear glass at the poker table below. Lydia was just one of a few people left watching the private poker game.

She clutched the arm of her chair, trying to stay calm. Miss Eleanor Russell, looking cool and collected as always, sat at the poker table. Her back was ramrod straight. Her beautiful gray hair was in a lovely upswept style that gave her such elegant air Lydia was almost jealous. Lydia had been trained from an early age to be elegant. For her it was sometimes a challenge, but for Miss Eleanor it was effortless.

Lydia smoothed the cool silk fabric of her black pants and tugged at her Arctic white turtleneck. The room was cold, kept icy so the poker players stayed alert. Only one other person remained at the poker table, besides Miss E. and the dealer. Only one person stood between Lydia and her new life. She wanted to send the evil mojo toward him like nobody’s business, but since she had been raised to be a lady, she could only think about doing it.

The other player sat slumped over his cards, his face hidden behind large sunglasses. He kept his cards face down on the table while the dealer dealt another card.

“Are you watching him?” Jasper Biggins leaned over to whisper to Lydia. He was in his mid-sixties with iron gray hair and strong hands. His blue eyes held a twinkle. He told her he’d lived in Reno his whole life.

Miss E. had told Lydia he owned this beautiful casino with a twelve-story hotel rising overhead. Why Jasper wanted to be rid of the Casa de Mariposa was a mystery to Lydia, though Miss E. probably knew. Miss E. knew everything. And she wasn’t telling.

“What am I looking for?” She studied man, hoping she would see his tell. Behind him, at the opposite end of the gallery, a woman sat watching the game with the same level of concentrated interest as Lydia. She vaguely remembered being told the woman was Jasper’s daughter. She was a slender, brittle-looking woman with a hard face and angry eyes.

The pile of chips in front of the man at the poker table was considerably smaller than it had been at the beginning of the game, when the last seven players out of the original seventy-seven sat down to try their luck in winning the casino, the final prize of the game.

“Watch his hands.” Jasper pointed a bony finger, directing her gaze to the player below.

Lydia leaned forward and realized the man sitting across from Miss E. clutched his fingers tightly. A few minutes earlier they had been more relaxed.

“That’s his tell,” Jasper said. “I don’t think he even realizes what he’s doing.”

Most professional players thought their eyes and facial expressions gave them away, hence the oversized sunglasses to hide what he thought must be his tell. Jasper had been educating Lydia, giving her a running commentary on the game as it progressed. Lydia had a rudimentary knowledge of the game learned at Miss E.’s poker school when Lydia had first attended. But Jasper brought a deeper, more profound knowledge of the game and Lydia was happy to listen.

Miss Eleanor tapped the table, her long graceful fingers holding her cards almost daintily. She wore clear reading glasses, her own face impassive. If she had a tell, Lydia hadn’t spotted it yet. Miss E. looked completely unassuming and harmless, yet Lydia knew a tigress lurked beneath that tranquil, serene exterior.

The dealer slid a card toward Miss E. and she smiled at him and said thank-you. She was always gracious, always mannerly while the other player tended to be surly. The man shoved all the stacks of chips in front of him to the center of the table. Eleanor matched it.

Lydia believed Miss E. had her opponent on the run, but Lydia had been taking poker lessons for only the past few months, so she wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Miss Eleanor had taught Lydia the mechanics of poker, but the more subtle details of the game eluded her.

Miss Eleanor’s opponent said something. Miss Eleanor raised a delicate eyebrow. Slowly she turned over the cards in front of her, not even looking at them. With an angry twist to his lips, the man threw his cards at her and stood up. Miss Eleanor smiled and scooped up all the chips and the deed for the casino that had been the final prize. Miss Eleanor had won.

Lydia tilted her head at Miss Eleanor. “Lydia,” she said in a clear voice, “you, Reed and I are now the proud owners of the Casa de Mariposa.”

Lydia wet her lips. “I knew you wouldn’t lose.” Her nervousness drained away, replaced by elation. She had set out to do something different with her life, and here she was a former upper crust hostess of New Orleans society and now the new owner of a casino.

Miss. E. leaned close to the window, her voice carried into the gallery by a microphone. “You can take a breath now, sweetie.”

Lydia did. She jumped to her feet. She couldn’t wait to tell Maya.

“Let’s go enjoy our victory.” Jasper held out a hand to her.

Across the gallery Jasper’s daughter watched them, her mouth tight with anger. She glared at her father, then turned on her heel and left the gallery.

“Of course.” Lydia gathered up her purse and jacket and headed toward the gallery door, Jasper following on her heels.

In the hall outside the poker room, Miss Eleanor handed the signed deed to Lydia. “I’m going to call Reed. I wish he could have been here. He’ll be ecstatic.”

Lydia had yet to meet Reed. He’d been called home to deal with a family emergency.

She stared at the deed, excited, scared and hopeful. She could hardly wait to go back to her suite to tell her daughter. Their new life in Reno, Nevada, had just begun.

Chapter 1

Hunter Russell woke and tried to figure out what was ringing. Darkness outside the windows of his apartment told him it was still night. A quick glance at the clock told him it was just after three a.m. A few sleepy moments passed before he realized the ringing sound was his phone. He grabbed the device, feeling a surge of worry when he saw his grandmother’s number on the display. His heart started racing as panic engulfed him.

“Miss E,” he said, “what’s wrong? Are you okay?” Dire thoughts rushed through him.

She laughed. “I’m fine, Hunter. Just fine. Nothing is wrong.”

In his experience, phone calls at three a.m. were never good. “Then why are you calling?” He sat up, struggling to push sleep away. If nothing was wrong, why was his seventy-eight-year-old grandmother calling at three in the morning?

“Pack your bags, Hunter, I need you in Reno. Immediately.”

Lingering drowsiness finally cleared. “Are you sure you’re okay? Are you sure you’re not ill?”

“Trust me. Everything is fabulous,” she said, still laughing. “I just won a casino in a poker game.”

“You what?”

She repeated her statement, pausing between each word. “I...just...won...a...casino. In a poker game.”

He shook his head. Had he heard her right? “Did you just say you won a casino?”

“Twice, Hunter. Wake up.”

That wasn’t what he expected to hear. “Miss E., are you insane? Are you drunk?”

“Grandson,” she said sharply, “do you think I can’t reach through this phone and slap you upside the head?”

Hunter tried not to flinch. He did think that. His grandmother was capable of anything. “I’m sorry, Miss E. Just start from the beginning and talk really slow.”

She sighed. “I had an opportunity to win a casino in a poker game. Lydia Montgomery and Reed Watson staked me and I won that baby on an inside straight that no one saw coming because I’m an old lady.” She giggled.

When he’d been a child, she tried to keep what she did on the down low. Hunter and his siblings all knew she’d send them off to school in the morning and be home again when they returned. In between she played poker—cutthroat poker. They all knew she supported them by playing cards at various casinos in Las Vegas, but no one really talked about it. After all, she’d inherited four boisterous children when their parents had died in an automobile accident and she had to be respectable.

“I’ll be there in four or maybe five hours,” he said, unable to stop himself from talking. He just had to know how she had the nerve to bet her life savings for a shot at winning a casino.

“See you soon. I’ll be at the Casa de Mariposa. It’s easy to find.” She disconnected.

Hunter set his phone down on the nightstand, his head spinning. What had his grandmother gotten into now? The first thing he did was call the airport, but since he couldn’t get a flight until morning, he might as well drive. The arrival time would be the same. Next, he called his two brothers and sister to put them on standby. After a quick shower, he packed for a week and walked out the door of his South Beach apartment while sending text messages to his personal assistant to reschedule his appointments. Later he would let her know how far ahead she needed to reschedule.

He opened the door to the underground garage and walked to his Mercedes. A few moments later he pulled out into the thick, foggy morning air of San Francisco and headed toward the freeway.

* * *

Hunter couldn’t believe his eyes. He stood in the parking lot, staring up at the elegant stately hotel that rose twelve stories up. Morning sun had already chased the desert night chill away, replacing it with rising heat. A temperature gauge on a bank across the street flashed an eighty-eight in between showing the time.

“What do you think?” Miss E. stood next to him on the sidewalk as he studied the rows of balconies that studded the side of the hotel with his inner architect eye.

The Spanish architecture was beautifully done. Painted in a glowing golden pink, the stucco façade was fancifully decorated with brightly colored mosaic trim around the doors and window, with elaborate gothic arches over the entrance to the hotel. The architectural style was a bit of a mishmash of Spanish Colonial, Moorish influence and a touch of Gothic, yet it was still pleasantly attractive and easy on the eyes.

Though he was in awe, he couldn’t stop himself from scolding his grandmother. Actually, he wanted to shake her, but he was afraid she’d hurt him, so he let that notion go. “What were you thinking? Gambling your entire life savings away on a chance, a small, miniscule chance of winning a casino?” Hunter asked.

Her lips turned down in that disapproving smile that had haunted his childhood, but amusement lurked in her eyes. “I told you retirement just isn’t for me. I’ve never been so bored in my whole life.”

He leaned back on his heels, studying the façade. The hotel was on his left and the casino, contained in a three-story building, was to his right. The parking lot flanked the structure and wound around the sides. “What do you want me to do with it?” Other than some cosmetic needs, the structure looked good, though he would know better after a look at the blueprints and a more careful, detailed inspection.

Miss E. grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him down to her eye level. “You don’t need to do anything with this part. What I want you to do is design and oversee the building of a spa. Hot springs on the rear of the property are just going to waste. Jasper Biggins, he’s the original owner, planned to build a spa, but never quite got around to it. I need you to do it.”

The front doors opened at their approach and a blast of cold air flooded over them. Hunter glanced around the reception area with a knowledgeable eye.

“You need some work done in here, too.” Though he had to admit the hotel was in pretty good shape. He guessed it had been built in the mid-seventies. “Just a little touch-up, a good cleaning and some professional restoration work. That’s just my first impression. I have to see blueprints, do a thorough inspection, but I can find you someone good who can do that.”

“I don’t want someone good.” Miss E. shook her head. “I want you.”

They walked through the reception area after a quick glance at the casino and out the back to the pool sparkling in the morning sun. The pool was roughly L-shaped. Lounge chairs bordered the edges. A small cabana showed stacks of white towels. Already half the chairs were filled with lounging customers smearing tanning lotion on their skin. Children played in the shallow end.

The hotel curved to his right around the pool and the casino curved to the left. Beyond that, he saw nothing but desert rising into hills.

His gaze traveled up over the balconies jutting out over the pool. A couple kids stood on one, looking down. If his brother Donovan had been there, he would have already calculated the distance from the balcony to the pool and considered trying a swan dive. Donovan had always been the daredevil. Hard to believe he was now a chef in Paris. His brother Scott had always been Donovan’s co-conspirator, leaving Hunter to partner with their only sister, Kenzie. If only Kenzie were here. She’d always been able to handle Miss E., unlike Hunter and his brothers, who always seemed to be in conflict with her.

“I have a business in San Francisco.” The hotel/casino was a grand old dame, just like his grandmother.

“And you have a partner who can take up the slack. I want you,” Miss E. repeated more forcefully.

Hunter gulped. “Yes, ma’am.” No one argued with Miss E. He’d always been a tall man. Even at ten, when he first came to live with his grandmother, he’d been taller than her. He’d used his size to intimidate his two brothers and sister. The one time he’d tried to intimidate his grandmother, he’d learned the hard way that no one crossed her and lived to tell about it. He was thirty-two years old and his grandmother could still make him feel as if he was ten. Miss E. played poker with a lot of unsavory people and didn’t intimidate easily.

“Who’s financing this?” Hunter wiped a trickle of sweat from his forehead. “You don’t have that kind of money.” But then again she could, and no one would ever know about it unless she wanted them to.

His grandmother waved at the top floor of the hotel. “You’ll meet Miss Montgomery later. She’s getting settled in one of the penthouse suites. And Reed will be along when his family emergency is taken care of.”

Another thought occurred to him. Private poker games like the one his grandmother participated had a high buy-in. “How did you manage the entry fee for the game?”

“Reed and Lydia put up the buy-in money and I brought the expertise. We each own a third.”

Hunter stepped back and looked up. From what he could see the structure, the bones seemed solid, though he’d know more when he started crawling around inside. They walked back into the reception area.

“This place looks frozen in time.” Hunter watched a middle-aged couple step through the front doors and out into the dry July heat.

The interior was dark, heavy with wood furniture despite the most beautiful mosaic floor he’d ever seen. The long check-in counter was painted a dull brown and a woman standing behind it wore a dark brown business suit with the logo of the hotel embroidered on the pocket of her blazer. She glanced up and smiled at Miss E., then went back to whatever task she’d been doing.

The check-in area opened onto a large airy courtyard, with a pond that meandered toward the casino. The pond was a nice touch. About six feet wide and made to look like a stream, the pond bisected the approach to the casino. Small footbridges crossed over it. On one bridge a young woman stood looking down. A flash of fish caught his eye and he bent over the edge of the pond to see koi the size of his foot.

Women dressed in short flamenco skirts and ruffled blouses along with men dressed as matadors wandered the casino floor with trays, balanced on their hands, filled with various sized drinks.

The casino was really old school with slot machines that chimed out the winners along with the dings of coins into the collection bowls. The more modern casinos switched everything to digital, which were quieter and took prepaid cards instead of money.

“The hotel has four hundred twelve rooms,” Miss E. said as they walked through the check-in area. “There are two restaurants, one café and a lounge. There’s a small stage in the lounge for live entertainment, a couple of novelty shops at the other end of the casino and a small amphitheater for the big name acts.”

Hunter sighed. “Where does the spa fit in?”

“Behind the pool is the hot springs. To take advantage of the hot springs, I think the spa needs to go there.”

He would have to take a look at the area. Miss E. led him toward the bar at the edge of the casino area.

“Good morning, Miss E.,” the bartender called cheerfully.

Miss E. waved at him, a happy smile on her face. “That’s Roy. He’s been here for years and knows where all the bodies are buried.”

Hunter shook his head, still trying to process the fact his grandmother owned a casino. He wondered if his grandmother had gone insane to risk everything she had for this. “One question.”

“Only one?”

He had about a million, but they’d have to wait. “What do you know about running a hotel and casino?”

She shrugged her elegant shoulders. “I know how to play poker.”

So did he, because she’d taught him to play the game. “That does not make for experience in hotel management.”

“I have Jasper,” she said.

As if that gave him any reassurance that this wasn’t a still a crazy idea. “And he is?”

“He’s the previous owner and I’ve hired him to stay on as a consultant. I know what you’re thinking, Hunter.”

“No, you don’t.” Hunter hated when she told him exactly what he was thinking. Why couldn’t she have been a bank clerk? Bank clerks didn’t need to read people.

“You’re wondering if I’ve lost my mind.”

Damn, he thought. “Okay, you do know what I’m thinking. Have you lost your mind?”

She punched him on the arm. “Stop thinking that.”

“What am I supposed to think?”

“That this is an incredible opportunity too good to pass up” she replied tartly.

“An incredible opportunity for what?” Poverty, starvation or homelessness?

“To be a financially independent woman, a chance to call the shots,” she said.

“I’m already financially independent, and if you’re worried about money, I’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t want nor do I need you taking care of me. I can take of myself,” she said, a glimmer of anger in the set line of her mouth. “I’ve been doing it for a few years now.”

“Then why did I need to rush over here?” Hunter ran a hand over his face. He never did win an argument with her.

“Because I want my grandchildren to be a part of this.”

A restaurant opened off the casino and Hunter glanced inside. “So what do you want me to do to be a part of this?” Hunter asked. Maybe what he needed to do was to treat her like a client instead of his grandmother.

“Old world elegance brought into the twenty-first century.”