Colleen Collins - Hearts in Vegas

“You’re not going into this alone.”

P.I. Frances Jefferies is the perfect person to slip into Las Vegas’s underworld to recover a priceless necklace. With her elite investigative skills, not to mention her jewel-thief past, she knows she can get the job done. That is, until a sexy stranger gets in her way.

Braxton Morgan’s past is as secretive as her own. There’s so much about this man she wants to discover—but not at the cost of her case. For that, she must stay focused. Then Braxton suggests adding his security expertise to catch the criminal. And suddenly they’re mixing smarts with danger and a whole lot of passion!

“Frances, wait.”

“Need to leave,” she said between clenched teeth, taking another halting step away from Braxton.

He slid his arm around her back, bracing her against him. “Lean on me.”

She ducked her head, wondering when she’d slipped her arm around him. Her fingertips grazed the silky weave of his shirt, sensing his taut muscles underneath.

They were in the hallway now, and she released a sigh as the cooler air soothed her heated skin. She started to pull away, but he tightened his hold.

Her world rocked in place as they accidentally cuddled. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, only feel. The strength of his body against hers, his masculine scent rode the woody, jasmine aroma of his aftershave and shot to some primal part of her brain, triggering a warmth she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.…

Dear Reader,

Hearts in Vegas is my third “private eyes in Las Vegas” Mills & Boon Superromance (the first being The Next Right Thing, March 2013, and the second Sleepless in Las Vegas, December 2013).

This third book picks up with the story of P.I./security consultant Braxton Morgan, the twin brother of Drake Morgan, the hero in Sleepless in Las Vegas. On the surface, Braxton looks like the kind of guy for whom life is easy—he has rock-star Adam Levine looks, cool designer threads, a wry Hugh Grant sense of humor. But Braxton is a man who’s made his share of mistakes in life, resulting in a lot of losses, from his former home and big-money career to his family’s support. He’s fighting hard to rebuild a new life, piece by piece.

And then he meets Frances Jefferies, who walks into his life the way sultry Lauren Bacall first walked into Humphrey Bogart’s in The Big Sleep. And just like Bacall, Frances is mysterious, smoky, elusive...and Braxton says goodbye forever to his former playboy ways.

I really enjoyed writing the character of Frances, a magician’s daughter who’s skilled at sleight of hand. To learn more about this technique, I read several dozen articles by magicians and watched numerous videos of their performances. In my research, I fell in like with Teller, the quiet half of the duo-magician act Penn & Teller—in fact, I went to several of their shows in Las Vegas, and afterward met Teller, who is as charming and smart as you might imagine.

Braxton and Frances’s story is about two people who once failed the ones they love, and whose priorities include earning back their families’ respect, and maybe, finally, letting their hearts open again to love.

I enjoy hearing from readers, so I invite you to drop by my website, colleencollinsbooks.com, and let me know how you liked Hearts in Vegas!

Best wishes,

Colleen Collins

Hearts in Vegas

Colleen Collins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colleen Collins is a member of the Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America and Private Eye Writers of America, and has written several dozen novels in the romance and mystery genres, as well as three nonfiction books on private investigations. Similar to Frances in Hearts in Vegas, Colleen’s favorite magician is Teller, the silent half of the comedy magic duo Penn & Teller.

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EXTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

IF TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD Frances Jefferies had learned anything from her years as a pickpocket, it was the importance of blending in to one’s surroundings.

Today, February 5, her task was to steal a valuable brooch from Fortier’s, a high-end jewelry store in Las Vegas. To blend in with the Wednesday bling-shopping crowd, she’d put on a red-and-leopard-print top underneath a loose-fitting Yves Saint Laurent white silk pantsuit, and a pair of killer Dolce & Gabbana stilettos.

Time for one last practice run.

She retrieved two similar-size brooches from a dresser drawer. One, a rhinestone flower-petaled pin, was an exact replica of the diamond-encrusted Lady Melbourne brooch stolen ten years ago from a museum in Amsterdam. Its whereabouts had been unknown until it suddenly, and mysteriously, surfaced at Fortier’s a few days ago. She slipped the replica into an inside pocket of her jacket and set the other pin on her dresser.

Watching her reflection in the dresser mirror, she practiced the sleight-of-hand trick, deftly plucking the brooch from the pocket and swiftly replacing it with the other pin, three times in succession. Each switch went smoothly.

Now for the finishing touch. She selected a pair of antique garnet earrings from her jewelry box and put them on.

Leaning closer to the mirror, she swept a strand of her ash-blond hair off her face, tucking it lightly into her chignon. Her gaze slipped to her lower cheek. This close, she could see the faint outline of silicon gel underneath her meticulously applied makeup. For anyone else to see it, they would have to be inches away, and she never let anyone get that close.

A few moments later, she walked into the living room, where her dad sat in his favorite chair, shuffling a deck of cards. A basketball game was on TV, the crowd yelling as a player dunked the ball.

“Still working on The Trick That Fooled Houdini?” she asked.

He grinned and set the cards on a side table. “Like Houdini, I can’t figure out how Vernon did it, either.”

Dai Vernon, Houdini’s contemporary, had devised a card routine where a spectator’s chosen card always appeared at the top of the deck. Houdini, who bragged that he could figure out any magician’s trick, never solved this one.

Her dad, who’d worked as a magician his entire life, had never solved it, either. Sometimes he jokingly referred to it as The Trick That Fooled Houdini and Jonathan Jefferies.

“Going to work?” he asked.

His thinning dark hair was neatly parted on the side, and a pair of reading glasses hung on a chain around his neck. He had a slight paunch, but otherwise stayed in shape from daily walks and a fairly healthy diet, if one overlooked his love of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

She looked at his faded Hawaiian-print shorts and Miami Heat T-shirt with its ripped sleeve, wishing he’d let her buy him some new clothes. But he liked to stick with what was “tried-and-true,” from his haircut to clothes.