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      For Sam and Janet Smith, my dear, funny friends.

       Thanks for some of the best advice

       I’ve ever received:

      Go to Harlequin!

      CHAPTER ONE

       Las Vegas, Nevada

      HE’D KNOWN ALL DAY that something was about to go down, something life-changing and entirely new. The knowledge had prickled in his gut and shivered in the fine hairs on the nape of his neck throughout the marathon poker games played in his favorite seedy, backstreet gambling joint. He’d ignored the subtle mind-buzz as a minor distraction—it didn’t have the usual elements of actual danger. But now, with a wad of folded bills—his winnings—shoved into the shaft of his left boot, Dylan Creed knew he’d better watch it, just the same.

      Down in Glitter Gulch, there were crowds of people, security goons hired by the megacasinos to make sure their walking ATMs didn’t get roughed up or rolled, or both, cops and cameras everywhere. Here, behind the Black Rose Cowboy Bar and Card Room, home of the hard-core poker players who scorned glitz, there was one failing streetlight, an overflowing Dumpster, a handful of rusty old cars and, at the periphery of his vision, a rat the size of a raccoon.

      While he loved a good fight, being a Creed, born and bred, Dylan was nobody’s fool. A tire iron to the back of the head and being relieved of the day’s take—fifty-odd thousand dollars in cash—was not on his to-do list.

      He walked toward his gleaming red extended-cab Ford pickup with his customary confidence, and probably looked like a hapless rube to anybody who might be lurking behind that Dumpster, or one of the other cars or just in the shadows.

      Someone was definitely watching him; he could feel it now, a for-sure kind of thing—but it was more annoying than alarming. He’d learned early in his life, though, just by being Jake Creed’s middle son, that the presence of another person, or persons, charged the atmosphere with a crackle of energy.

      Just in case, he reached inside his ancient denim jacket, closed his fingers loosely around the handle of the snub-nosed .45 he carried on his frequent gambling junkets. Garth Brooks might have friends in low places like the Black Rose, but he didn’t. Only sore losers, crooks and card sharps hung out in this neighborhood, and Dylan Creed fell into the latter category.

      He was within six feet of the truck before he realized there was someone sitting in the passenger seat. He debated whether to draw the .45 or his cell phone in the split second it took to recognize Bonnie.

      Bonnie. His two-year-old daughter stood on the seat, grinning at him through the glass.

      Dylan sprinted to the driver’s side, scrambled in and lost his hat when the little girl flung herself on him, her arms tight around his neck.

      With his elbow, Dylan tapped the lock-button on his armrest.

      “Daddy,” Bonnie said. At least, in his mind the kid’s name was Bonnie—Sharlene, her mother, had changed it several times, according to the latest whim.

      “Hey, babe,” Dylan said, loosening his grip a little because he was afraid of crushing the munchkin. “Where’s your mom?”

      Bonnie drew back to look at him with enormous blue eyes, thick-lashed. Her short blond hair curled in wisps around her ears, and she was wearing beat-up bib overalls, a striped T-shirt and flip-flops for shoes.

      I’m only two, her expression seemed to say. How should I know where my mom is?

      Dylan turned, keeping one arm around Bonnie, and buzzed down the window. “Sharlene!” he yelled into the dark parking lot.

      There was no answer, of course, and he knew by the shift in the vibes he’d been picking up since he stepped through the back door of the Rose that his onetime girlfriend

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