He’d made a fool of himself but he’d done that before and survived. Not with a woman. Never with a woman, but he’d done his fair share of dumb things. Like making cold phone calls as a trainee at a San Francisco brokerage house and being set up by one of the other trainees so that somehow he’d ended up phoning the wife of the firm’s CEO.
He’d sold her three hundred shares of stock.
Now there was Cassie. Well, yeah. He was sorry he’d kissed her, but seeing her again, apologizing, wasn’t going to be any problem at all. Wasn’t there some old Irish saying about a little humility lightening the load and being good for the soul?
If there wasn’t, there ought to be.
As for buying the vineyard…Keir took a deep breath and pulled the car back into traffic. Enough introspection. He was minutes from home, his mother was getting married tomorrow, and he had the feeling he was in for one hell of an old-fashioned, rowdy O’Connell family reunion.
Up ahead, a creature that looked like a small, slow-moving tank stepped out of the scrub. It looked from side to side, took a cautious step forward, then an equally cautious step back.
Keir braked, swung wide, and left the armadillo in the dust.
Half an hour later, he pulled into the employee lot at the Desert Song and parked his car in its usual space. The security guard at the back entrance gave him a big smile.
“Hey, Mr. O’Connell. You’re back.”
“How’re you doing, Howard?” Keir stuck out his hand. “How’s your wife? That baby’s due any time now, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Couple of weeks. How was the vacation?”
“Terrific.”
“And now it’s back to work, huh?”
“Something like that.” Keir clapped the guard on the shoulder. “Take care, Howard. Be sure and let me add my good wishes when the baby gets here.”
Keir stopped smiling as he stepped inside the hotel and walked down the hall that led past a series of offices. He could almost feel the place swallow him up. Even dragging a breath into his lungs seemed difficult.
A month away, and now he really knew how much he wanted out.
He stabbed the freight elevator call button, tucked his hands into the pockets of his well-worn Levi’s and tipped back a little on his heels.
The duchess had made it clear that she’d understand, if he left the Song.
Would she, really?
He’d come to Vegas to help run the place after his father’s death. He was the eldest son, the O’Connell offspring who’d proven himself Responsible with a capital R. Cullen wasn’t. He’d just left college, a dozen credits short of his degree, to do God only knew what. Sean had been—well, nobody had been quite sure of what Sean had been doing or where he’d been doing it. And the girls—Megan, Fallon and Briana—had all still been away at school.
“You’ll just stay for a bit,” his mother had said, “only until I can handle things on my own.”
After a year, he’d suggested they hire a Chief Operating Officer.
“I don’t know that I’d feel comfortable with someone outside the family,” Mary had told him. “Can you stay on a little longer, Keir?”
He had, and just when it looked as if his mother was ready to take the reins, she’d had a massive heart attack.
Keir pressed the call button again and made a mental note to have Maintenance check the elevators. There were only two cars in this bank and they got heavy use from employees. One, at least, should have been moving.
Now, by a twist of fate, he was free of the responsibility of the Song. Thanks to another twist, maybe he’d found what he’d been looking for, even if all he knew about wine was how to drink it.
Better not to think like that. Whatever he knew or didn’t know about grapes and wine, he was glad he’d bought Deer Run, glad he was finally getting on with his life. He felt as if it had been on hold for years, not just the six he’d spent working for his mother but the years he’d spent taking university courses that bored him.
He’d never let himself think about that while he was in school or even afterward, but during the trip east, the car eating up the miles, he’d felt something pushing for acknowledgment inside him, as if what had gone on in that garden had only been the first step toward acceptance of the truth.
He was restless.
He’d always been restless, though he’d fought against it. He’d kept it hidden like a dirty secret, even from his family.
“My strong, dependable boy,” his mother had told him once. “You’re just like my Ruarch.”
Dependable? His father? Ruarch O’Connell had been a gambler, shifting them all from place to place on the turn of a card and never giving a damn for a plan that stretched further than tomorrow.
The last thing he wanted was to be like his father. Keir believed in laying things out so you knew what was coming next. And he’d never so much as fed a coin into a slot machine in his entire life.
So, why was he gambling now?
He tightened his jaw and pressed the call button again.
Investing in a property wasn’t gambling. It was logical. Reasonable. As reasonable as knowing, knowing, dammit, a woman wanted you and then letting her pretend she didn’t…
He cursed under his breath, pounded a fist on the call button and glared at the light panel above the door.
What he needed was a shower, a quick nap and a meal. Then he’d have his head together. That was why he was going to his suite the back way, so he didn’t run into the duchess or any of his brothers or sisters, who were probably at the Song by now.
He certainly wasn’t going the back way to avoid seeing Cassie.
Funny, how he’d never much noticed her until that night in the garden. She was an employee. He probably wouldn’t have known her name if she hadn’t been Dawn’s friend—and the duchess had taken an interest in Dawn.
Hello, Cassie.
Goodbye, Cassie.
That had been the extent of his involvement with her. He didn’t even know how long she’d been working at the Song, just that she was there, serving free drinks in the casino, dressed in what he thought of as the casino uniform. A short black skirt topped by a low-cut blouse. Black fishnet stockings. High heels. Vegas was a town where scantily dressed women were the status quo. Why would he have noticed?
But she hadn’t looked like that in Texas. Maybe that was the reason he’d become aware of her. Okay, maybe he had noticed her once or twice before. Even in a town like this, where beautiful women were a dime a dozen, Cassie’s looks were special.
She’d gone into the night with him, let him touch her and kiss her, and then she’d said “no.”
