color?”
She gave in and told him. “Light blue.”
“Sexy.”
“If you say so …”
“I do. What else?”
“A stretched out KinderWay T-shirt and ratty slippers.”
“I’m getting that feeling. You know which one I mean?”
“I could guess….”
“And underneath the blue sweatpants?”
“Panties. Plain cotton.”
“White?”
“Yes.”
“I love plain white cotton. So … functional.”
“Well, yes. It’s that.”
“Bra?”
“I’ll never tell.”
“Take it all off. Now.”
“Fletcher?”
“What?”
“Is this phone sex we’re having?”
“Now you’re catchin’ on.”
The next morning, Friday, she was in the five-year-olds’ room when he dropped Ashlyn off.
“Cleo!” Ashlyn ran to her.
She bent down and caught the warm little body close in her arms. “Oh, it’s so good to see you.”
Ashlyn pulled back and laid her small, soft hand so briefly against Cleo’s cheek. It felt absolutely lovely, that fond, trusting touch. The little girl asked, “Can I read to you today?”
“I would like that very much.”
“When?”
“How about morning playtime? I’ll come back here to your classroom.”
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t. I promise.” She rose to her height again, a delicious flush sweeping through her as she met Fletcher’s eyes.
“Walk me out to the gate,” he said.
She joined him as he turned for the door.
Once out of the classroom, they crossed the breezeway and headed down the walk. At the gate he paused and turned to her. “Tonight?”
Her heart beat in a lazy, deep kind of way. Her blood moved slow and sweet through her veins as she thought of the afternoon before—of last night on the phone. “Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
He arrived right on time. They went to a little Italian place he knew off the Strip, away from the glitz and the glitter. The food was good and the wine even better.
She held it to one glass. Just being with him was challenge enough to her good sense. He asked her about her years as a showgirl and she told him everything he wanted to know—about the shows she’d been in and the killing hours, working all night, going to school in the daytime.
“It was tough. I never got enough sleep. After a show, we’d all be keyed up. The temptation was to hang out with the other dancers, have a few drinks, kind of come down. But when I did that, I wouldn’t get to bed until after daylight. In my case, I needed to be at my first class at ten. No way. I had to force myself to go straight home.”
“You have discipline.”
She laughed. “There’s not a professional dancer in the world who doesn’t have an excess of that. The work is so demanding. And you just can’t fake it. But for me, well, I was after a different kind of life. And I was fortunate. I managed to take what I knew—dancing—and use it to get where I wanted to go.”
She asked about how he had gotten where he was now. He told her how he had come up through the casinos in Atlantic City.
“Dealer, floor supervisor, pit boss, assistant shift manager—you name the job, I’ve probably done it. The irony is, while I was learning the business in New Jersey, Aaron was doing the same thing here in Nevada. We knew of each other, had even met briefly—twice—before we learned that we were brothers.”
“You’re kidding. You met, realized you had the same last name—and you didn’t even wonder if you might be related?”
“Bravo’s not that uncommon a name.”
“But you look a lot alike …”
He shrugged those wide shoulders. “What can I tell you? The truth was right there in front of us, we just didn’t see it. But then Jonas and Aaron formed the Bravo Group. They were looking for someone to run Impresario. They had me checked out before they approached me and in the process discovered who my father was. It all pretty much fell into place from there.”
“And that was when?”
“I moved here two years ago.”
“Was Ashlyn living with you then?”
He shook his head. “Her mother was still alive. Belinda died a few months after I came to Vegas.” Belinda. His ex was named Belinda.
“That must have been hard,” said Cleo. “For Ashlyn, especially. To lose her mother so young …”
He watched her. She thought he seemed … wary somehow. Then he looked down. “Kids are resilient.”
“So people always say.”
He glanced up again, a sharp gleam in his eye. “You think they’re not?”
“I think children are tender and open and defenseless. They can be easily damaged. And I think it’s nothing short of a miracle what some kids live through and yet still manage to lead happy, productive lives.” She reached across the table and touched his arm. When he looked at her once more, she added, “And I also think Ashlyn is really something. I think you—and her mother—have done a great job with her. She’s not only bright and beautiful, she’s fun in her own oh-so-serious way and she’s interested in others. She’s a terrific kid.”
He gave her a slow nod. “Thank you.”
“Hey. It’s only the truth. Was Belinda sick?”
He glanced away, then back. “Her death was sudden.”
“And when she died, you two had been divorced for …?”
Something had definitely happened in his eyes—something final, like a thick door swinging shut. “About three years.”
Cleo did the math. “You mean, you were divorced before Ashlyn
