Shameless. Ann Major

cradling his head in her lap.

      “Celeste?”

      He was sweating and freezing at the same time.

      An eternity later he looked up and saw a chopper coming in hot, kicking up dust and gravel before settling on the ground.

      A rock that felt like a piece of hot metal gouged Phillip’s cheek.

      “Damn.”

      Then Ty was back lifting him, up…up…into the chopper. They took off in a hurry. They were going home.

      Home to Celeste.

      He shut his eyes and saw Celeste…blond and pretty, her eyes as blue as a Texas sky. She was crying, her cheeks glistening. The image, even if it was false, was better than a funeral.

      Phillip’s hand shook as he lifted the razor. He paused, staring at the gaunt face with the slash across the cheek. It had been seven days since the rescue, and he was still as weak as a baby.

      When the infirmary door slammed open, he jumped like a scared girl, panicking at the sound of boots because they reminded him of Xavier. The razor fell into the sink with a clatter.

      In the mirror, the dark-haired stranger with the hollowed-out silver eyes was pathetic. By comparison the darkly handsome man who strode up behind him was disgustingly robust.

      “Mercado?”

      Ricky flashed his daredevil grin. “Good to see you up and about.”

      “Yeah.” Westin had to grip the sink with tight fingers so he wouldn’t fall. No way was he walking back to the hospital bed. No way would he let Mercado gloat at how wobbly he was.

      “After this, you’d better lay low, amigo. You stirred up a hornet’s nest.”

      “You think I don’t know that.”

      “El Jefe’s big. And not just down here. They’re well connected in Texas.”

      “Why the hell do you think I came down—”

      “These guys won’t give up. They’ll be gunning for you and yours.”

      “There is no yours. She left me, remember.” Phillip shut up. He didn’t want to talk about her. Still, Mercado was one of the few who knew about Celeste. Most of his buddies believed he’d never gotten over his first love, Patricia, the classy girl he’d loved in college—the proper girl. It was better that way, better not to cry on their shoulders about a trashy singer he’d picked up in a bar and been stupid enough to fall for.

      “Yeah, and Celeste’s the reason you’ve had a death wish for seven damn years.”

      “Shut up.”

      “You’re forty-one, amigo.”

      “You make that sound old.”

      “Too old for this line of work.”

      “This was personal. You know that. The bastards were moving into Mission Creek. They were using kids to run guns. Kids—”

      “Why don’t you go back to your ranch? Find a nice, churchgoing girl, get married and hatch some rug rats.”

      “Sounds like fun. What about you? You straight? Or are you gonna run arms for the family? What the hell were you doing down there?”

      Mercado scowled. “Saving your ass.”

      “You had some help.”

      “What does it take? A declaration written in blood. Like I told you—I’m straight.”

      “You’d better be.”

      His face and eyes dark with pain, Mercado shut up and stared at the floor. Phillip felt instant remorse. “Ty told me you were useful in the Mezcaya rescue,” Phillip admitted.

      “I’m surprised he said—”

      “He did. Thanks. I owe you…for what you did for Ty. And for me.”

      Suddenly Westin was no longer in the mood to question the character of a man who’d helped save him. The heated exchange had left him so weak, Mercado’s dark face began to swirl. His fingers couldn’t seem to hold on to the sink. No way could he shave.

      “Oh, God,” he muttered as the gray tiles rushed up to meet him.

      Mercado lunged, barely catching him before he fell.

      “Find that nice girl,” Mercado muttered. “Lean on my arm, old buddy, and we’ll get you back to bed.”

      “Hell. I don’t go for nice girls. I like ’em hot…and shameless.”

      “Maybe it’s time for a change of pace…in your old age.”

      “Old age?” Stung, Phillip almost howled. The truth was, a ninety-year-old was stronger than he was. Oh, God, why was it such a damn struggle to put one foot in front of the other? When he finally made it to the bed, he was gasping for every breath. He let go of Mercado and fell backward.

      His head slammed into the pillow. Even so, they both managed a weak laugh.

      “Get the hell out of here, Mercado.”

      “Forget shameless. Find that churchgoing girl, old man.”

      Mercado waved jauntily and saluted. Then the door banged behind him and he was gone.

      One

      Stella Lamour grabbed her guitar and glided out of the storeroom Harry let her use as a dressing room. After all, a star had to have a dressing room. She tried to ignore the fact that the closet was stacked with cases of beer, cocktail napkins and glasses…and that the boxy, airless room gave her claustrophobia when she shut the door.

      Some dressing room…. Some star….

      As Stella approached the corner to make her entrance, she cocked her glossy head at an angle so that her long yellow hair rippled flirtily down her slim, bare back. At thirty-two, she was still beautiful, and she knew it. Just as she knew how to use it.

      “Fake it till you make it, baby,” Johnny, her ex-manager, always said.

      Fake it? For how much longer? In this business and this city, beauty was everything, at least for a woman. Every day younger, fresher girls poured into Vegas, girls with big dreams just like hers. Johnny signed them all on, too.

      Hips swaying, Stella moved like a feral cat, her lush, curvy, petite body inviting men to watch, not that there were many to do so tonight. There was a broad-shouldered hunk at the bar. He gave her the once-over. Her slanting, thickly-lashed, blue eyes said, “You can look, but keep your distance, big boy—this is my territory.”

      Johnny Silvers, her no-good ex-manager, who liked fast cars and faster women, had taught Stella how to move, how to walk, how to hold her head, how to look like a star—how to fake it.

      Some star. The closest she’d come was to warm the crowd up before the real star came on stage.

      Now she’d sunk to Harry’s.

      Harry’s was a dead-end bar in downtown Vegas, a hangout for middle-aged retreads, divorcées, widowers, alcoholics, burned-out gamblers—a dimly lit refuge for the flotsam and jetsam who couldn’t quite cut it in real life and were too broke to make their play in the hectic, brightly lit casinos on the strip. They were searching for new lives and new loves. Not that they could do more in Harry’s than drown their sorrows and take a brief time-out before they resumed their panicky quests.

      In a few more years, I’ll be one of them, Stella thought as she grimly shoved a chair aside on her way to the bar.

      Her slinky black dress was so tight across the hips, she had to stand at her end of the bar when she finally reached it. She’d put on a pound, maybe two. Not good, not when the new girls kept getting younger and slimmer.

      Mo, the bartender, nodded hello and