Free Lucky by Sharon Sala

toward pockets or hair. Tips from happy customers went in a special slot on the table, while cash went in another, and so on, and so on. She hadn’t missed a thing.
    When the shoe of cards had been shuffled, she pushed it toward the man to her right and handed him a large, colorful, plastic card. He took it, inserted it about halfway up the cards in the shuffled shoe, thereby proclaiming that the cards had been “cut.” As she was about to begin, her concentration was broken by a player’s question.
    “Hey, babe. Did I hear the man call you Lucky?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Is that really your name?”
    Lucky sighed. How many times in this city would she hear that question?
    “Yes. It’s really my name.”
    He grinned like the Cheshire cat, deciding that he’d just fallen down a rabbit hole of immense proportions, and shoved five one-hundred-dollar bills toward her.
    “Change, please,” he barked. “All quarters, honey. I suddenly feel lucky.”
    Lucky calmly counted out the twenty-five-dollar chips that he’d requested, then announced:
    “Players…place your bets.”
    And so it began. Manny Sosa stood a distance away, assessing the calmness of the woman. Her instant skill at mental calculation of the three-two payoff that the tables made was unusually adept, as was her cool, professional attitude in dealing with the customers who tried to get too friendly. At this point, Manny knew that he’d found himself a jewel. Part of his dealer shortage had been dealt with.
    But another, more serious situation remained. Someone wanted Nicky dead, and Manny wouldn’t have it. Even if it meant losing sleep for the next six months, he was ready to bed down at Club 52 just to assure himself that Nick Chenault made no deadly mistakes.
    Lucky was unaware of the turmoil surrounding her place of employment, or the owner she had yet to meet. She was too absorbed in the play and the players.
    Yet in every ointment, there is a fly. And a croupier named Steve Lucas would be Lucky’s. He was milling about in the break room when Manny came through with the tall, black-haired beauty on his arm, giving her the new-employee tour. He’d watched with the intensity of the predator that he was, and when Lucky’s back was turned, he mentally stripped her of every garment she was wearing. From the classy blue slacks and jacket to the plain black flats.
    When Manny took her away to be outfitted in a dealer’s black tux, Steve knew that his day had just gone from suck, to so fine. He went through the motions of croupier, while patiently waiting for the golden opportunity to make his move on Lucky. By the time his dinnerbreak came, he realized it would coincide with hers. It was just as well. He’d worked himself up to hot and hard in anticipation of the successful swath he intended to cut through her path.
    Lucky didn’t see him coming. If she had, their first impressions of each other might have been different, and the rest of their lives might never have been altered. As it was, Lucas, in all his six-foot, body-builder perfection, assumed that an introduction was a flat waste of time. He waited until Lucky had a sandwich and soft drink in hand, and then made his move.
    “Hey, little Lucky, I feel like getting lucky myself tonight. What do you say?”
    Lucky froze. The hand squeezing the right side of her waist and the low, masculine whisper in her ear were an invasion of her space that she did not allow. Without spilling a drop, she pivoted.
    “Excuse me,” she said quietly. “But I don’t like to be touched.”
    Steve grinned at the cool flash of her green eyes. He assumed she was playing coy and accepted the challenge. He liked them hard to get. He took a step back, raising his hands in a gesture of playful arrest, and gave her his best Vegas smile. It always worked before.
    Lucky carefully eyed the tall, sandy-haired man, assessing his thick, muscular build as dangerous, the cut of his chin as weak, and the smile on his face as