The Next Right Thing (Harlequin Superromance) by Colleen Collins Read Free Book Online

make amends.
    Even if she hated Marc’s guts, she had a soft spot for his father.
    “Are the vultures onto this?” she asked quietly.
    He nodded. “ The Denver Post ran a headline—Like Father, Like Son. News stations are sniffing around. I need to find Gwen, make her accountable, safeguard my license, because if I lose it, my father might never...”
    It was like a cold fist closing on his heart. This was tougher than he’d thought.
    “If my license is suspended, I won’t be able to represent him at his parole release hearing,” he continued. “Cammie, I need to be there for him.”
    She dropped her head into her hands, stayed that way for a moment. When she finally raised her head, she looked around, avoiding his gaze.
    “I’ve met some P.I.’s in Vegas who are experienced at finding people. I still have your cell number...I’ll text you a few contact numbers, okay?”
    She turned, started heading back to the casino.
    “Cammie, please...”
    She didn’t stop.
    This time, he didn’t try to make her.
    Back in the rental car, he took out his cell and dialed the hotel room. When Emily answered, he said he’d be back in a few minutes.
    “That’s all?”
    “How’s the ice cream?” As luck would have it, there was an organic ice cream parlor—named Herb’s, which he guessed was somebody’s name or the ingredients—near their hotel.
    “Awesome. So I take it she said no.”
    “That she did.” He blew out an exasperated breath.
    “‘The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.’”
    “Tolstoy?”
    “Yep.”
    “So if I have patience and give this time, Cammie will see the light and work for me?”
    “Exactly.”
    “I love you, Em, but unfortunately, I’m running out of both.”
    In the background he heard people yelling, guns shooting. For all of her lofty proletariat chatter, Emily was still a kid who dug music and ice cream and true-crime TV shows that contained more drama and villainy than he’d seen after years in courtrooms.
    “So, like, we flew all the way to Las Vegas for nothing?”
    “Something like that,” he mumbled. Enough of this toil and trouble. He’d put it aside, spend some time with his daughter, deal with the Cammie issue later. “Hey, let’s grab lunch, do some shopping.”
    “Oh, what a capitalist idea. Let’s spend money.”
    “Em, cut me some slack. Marx is dead, we’re alive. Las Vegas is a restaurant mecca. If we can find an organic ice cream parlor here, I know we can find some awesome eco-vegetarian-gluten-free-green restaurants, too.”
    After ending the call, he stared out the windshield at the Shamrock Palace. Damn it all anyway. Flying hundreds of miles with a sullen teen who viewed their destination as the epitome of bourgeois depravity was bad enough without also being rejected by a corset-clad, wobbly heeled, unforgiving private eye.
    He glanced over at a billboard with pictures of showgirls, men in tuxes throwing dice, a curvaceous bikini-clad redhead lounging by a pool. Underneath were the words What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.
    “Got that motto wrong,” he muttered. “Should be It ain’t gonna happen in Vegas, buddy, so why’d you travel all the way here? ”

CHAPTER FOUR
    A LITTLE AFTER SEVEN that night, Cammie walked into her uncle Frankie’s ranch-style house, ablaze with lights because he never wanted her to come home to a dark house. When she’d first moved in, she’d told him he didn’t need to crank up his electrical bill on her behalf, but he was adamant that a little extra for electricity was a small price for her well-being.
    “Besides,” he’d said, “you never knew what you were coming home to as a kid. With me, lights on, no surprises.”
    He rarely minced words.
    After leaving the casino several hours ago, she’d headed to her community-service gig at Dignity House, a residential treatment center for troubled teenage girls on the outskirts of southeast Las Vegas. Located in a former boardinghouse,