Tall Tales and Wedding Veils Read Online Free PDF

woman he didn’t even know, waiting for her to play a ten-dollar chip so he could go home an even bigger loser?

    “How are you playing it?” he asked her.

    “You leave that to me.”

    As the shooter prepared to roll, she placed the chip on the pass line. When the come-out roll was a seven, Tony’s heart skipped. An automatic winner. But it didn’t mean a thing. Anybody could win one roll of the dice.

    She tucked one of the chips back inside her purse and held up the other one. “Now you have money to play with.”

    “It’s a far cry from twenty grand.”

    “Gotta start somewhere.”

    “Fine,” he said. “Play it again.”

    “It’s your turn now.”

    “Nope. I told you how my luck’s been running.”

    “As long as you avoid the sucker bets, you have as good a chance of winning big as I do.”

    But right now, Tony wasn’t so sure about that. He’d told her he didn’t believe in fate, but he had to admit it was more than a little strange that he’d met this woman in the elevator who was from his home town, who hung out in the bar he wanted to buy, who had found a chip outside her room that she insisted on giving him when he was all tapped out himself.

    Very
strange.

    When Tony first saw her, he’d immediately dismissed her. Average features. Plainly dressed. Nice-girl type, which meant she wasn’t his type. But he wasn’t looking for a date for the evening. He was looking for a miracle, and right now, she was the only one who might be able to give him one.

    “Listen to me . . . uh . . . What was your name again?”

    “Heather.”

    “Heather. Like I told you, my luck has left the building. I want you to play for me.”

    “And if I lose?”

    “I’d already lost. I’d be no worse off than I was ten minutes ago.”

    With a shrug, she placed the chip on the pass line again. When the shooter rolled a six as a come-out and his next roll was another six, which doubled Tony’s ten to twenty, he felt a little tremor of excitement.

    “What now?” Tony asked her.

    “Hmm,” she said, surveying the table. “A come bet.”

    “Why?”

    “Just a hunch.”

    She placed a bet, this time against the shooter. When the man crapped out, Tony turned to Heather with disbelief.

    “You won,” he said.

    “It’s nothing but luck.”

    “But some people’s luck is better than others’. Do it again.”

    The dealer passed the dice to Heather. She placed a bet, and on the come-out roll, she threw an eleven. Another winner. And because she’d played the odds, she’d more than doubled his money.

    Unbelievable.

    Then, on the next roll, she lost, and Tony felt a tremor of apprehension. But still she smiled up at him.

    “No big deal,” she said. “As long as we win more than we lose, we’ll be fine.”

    Over the next forty-five minutes, she didn’t win every roll, but her piles of chips grew bigger. The strangest little tremor slid across the back of Tony’s neck. He did a quick count, and to his astonishment, he was up nearly fifteen hundred dollars.

    This was starting to get serious. He had a decent stake now, one that could actually get him where he needed to go.

    As long as their lucky streak held.

    Heather was trying to play it cool, but she’d underestimated how nervous it would make her to see this much money on the line. She was into conservative investments that grew over time, not large chunks of money that could appear or disappear with the random roll of a pair of dice.

    She became aware of other women hovering around the table, watching the action, but mostly they were watching Tony. There was nothing like a handsome man on a winning streak to catch the attention of a horde of women. Heather might have been the one playing, but he was the one they were watching. To her surprise, she felt the funniest little twinge of possessiveness.

    Back off,
she wanted to say.
He’s with me.

    No matter what she’d told Alison about not being attracted to Tony, she just