Ian's Ultimate Gamble

One
Ian Westmoreland sat at his desk, knee-deep in paperwork, when for no apparent reason he felt a quick tightening in his gut. He was a man who by thirty-three had learned to trust his intuition as well as his deductive reasoning. He lifted his head to glance at the wood-paneled wall in front of him.

He reached out, pressed a button and watched as the paneling slid back to reveal a huge glass wall. The people on the other side who were busy wandering through the casino, taking their chances at the slot machines, gambling tables and arcades, had no idea they were being watched. In certain areas of the casino they were being listened to, as well. More than once the security monitors had picked up conversations best left unheard. But when you operated a casino as large as the Rolling Cascade, the monitors and one-sided mirror were in place for security reasons. Not everyone who came to a casino was there to play. There were those who came to prey on the weaknesses of others, and those were the ones his casino could do without. His huge surveillance room on the third floor, manned by top-notch security experts viewing over a hundred monitors twenty-four hours a day, made sure of it.

Since the grand opening, a lot of people had made reservations merely to check out the newly remodeled casino and resort and to verify the rumors that what had once been a dying casino had been brought back to life in unprecedented style. People Magazine had announced in a special edition that the Rolling Cascade had brought an ambience of Las Vegas to Lake Tahoe and had done it with class, integrity and decorum.

Ian stood and moved around to sit on the corner of his desk, his eyes sharp and assessing as he scanned the crowd. There had to have been a reason he was feeling uptight. The grand opening had been a success and he was glad he'd made the move from riverboat captain to casino owner with ease.

A few minutes later he was about to give up, consider his intuition as having an off day and get back to work, when he saw her.

Brooke Chamberlain.

He stood as his entire body got tense. What the hell was she doing here? Deciding he wasn't going to waste time trying to figure that out, he reached back to the phone on his desk. His call was quickly answered by the casino's security manager.

"Yes, Ian?"

"There's a woman standing at the east-west blackjack table wearing a powder-blue pantsuit. Please escort her to my office immediately."

There was a pause when his security manager asked a question. And in a tight voice Ian responded, "Yes, I know her name. It's Brooke Chamberlain."

After hanging up the phone, his full attention went back to the woman he'd once come pretty damn close to asking to be his wife before her betrayal. The last time he'd seen her had been three years ago in Atlanta at his cousin Dare's wedding. Since she'd once worked for Sheriff Dare Westmoreland as one of his deputies, she'd been invited, and Ian had deliberately ignored her.

But not this time. She was on his turf and he intended to let her know it.