“On my ticket!” Bruce chimed in. “Do I know how to pick numbers or what?!”
“And—and by all rights that money is yours. Fair and square, Bruce.”
Cat swallowed hard and held out the receipt. Damn that angel for showing up and telling her she’d won, when it wasn’t rightfully her money anyway!
Bruce Bigelow’s eyes glowed an enhanced emerald green as he gripped the other end of the lottery ticket. He had the sun-bleached hair and perfectly bronzed pecs of an all-American surf bum, and Cat had no trouble imagining him as some rich bitch’s cabana boy, hot and tanned and alluring in his Speedo. Without the dress, of course.
Bruce folded her fingers around the receipt and then kissed her fist. “This calls for champagne. A toast to your new life, Catalina Gamble.”
“Hear, hear!” Trevor cried. “I’ll go fetch a bottle from the cellar!”
“If—if the lottery board verifies these numbers for two hundred fifty-eight million dollars,” Grant intoned in his low courtroom voice, “you’ll have some important decisions to make very quickly, my dear. If your husband’s creditors get wind of this, they’ll try to—”
“Screw them.”
Cat looked into hypnotic eyes that glistened like indigo crystals. Just like that bad-ass angel had said, she suddenly had answers to all her problems! And thanks to her hours of online research, she knew exactly what she would do and where she wanted to go. At last, she could escape the annoying phone calls and threatening letters from Laird’s loan sharks!
“You’re my attorney, Grant,” she said earnestly, “and you’re going to get those bastards off my back. I did not accumulate those gambling debts, nor did I put the house in hock, and—and I’m not going to answer another one of their calls or accusations!”
Grant arched an eyebrow. “You’re not suggesting I blow them off? I’m not sure we can—”
“Whatever it takes. Keep it legal without caving in to them,” she breathed. “This windfall has just bought you all the time you need, and it’s my ticket out of a nightmare.”
“You go, girl!” Bruce hooted.
Still in shock from this lucky turn of events, Cat placed her hand on Bigelow’s smooth bronzed shoulder. “Even if I split this jackpot with you, Bruce, I’ll have more than enough to—”
“I want you to dream big, Cat,” the landscaper replied with a happy sigh. “Hey—I never figured on winning, so I won’t miss it. Easy come, easy go.”
“Don’t you tell those guys a thing before I get back up there!” Trevor called from downstairs. “I’m coming as fast as I can!”
“That is so Trevor,” Bruce breathed with a roll of his eyes.
Cat smiled. Idiosyncrasies aside, these guys were better friends than she’d had for a long, long time. The perfect buffers and pick-me-ups during the bleak six months since Laird took that overdose. Had Grant Carey not read of her predicament in the papers, she wouldn’t be sitting in this remodeled cathedral with a silver fox of an attorney dressed in a flowing poet’s shirt…and tights that hugged a whole lot of manhood. Nor would Grant’s friend Trevor have invited her to be his house guest, with perfectly honorable intentions! Too bad these three fascinating men were after each other rather than her.
But thanks to them, she had a new dream to plan—a whole new life to plot out! It sounded like a helluva lot more fun than bemoaning the crappy pirate drivel she’d written today and wondering if she’d ever sell another book. The thunder of boots in the stairway prompted her to click into Yahoo so she could access her bookmarks.
“Here’s the scoop, guys,” she began, breathless with feeling so alive again. “I took this online class about how to disappear—legally,” she added with a pointed look toward Grant. “So now I can get a J2 phone—load up on calling cards—and—and buy myself an island! I’ll—”
“What’s a J2 phone?” Trevor peeled the foil from the neck of his champagne bottle and then shot the cork over the railing with a satisfying pop. “You’re sharp, Cat, but you don’t impress me as the cloak-and-dagger type. Too damn beautiful to remain hidden or anonymous for long, no matter where you go. Technology being what it is, and all.”
She grinned brightly. Teague had never told her she was beautiful—and by God, she was starting to feel that way now! “J2 phone calls can’t be traced, which means Laird’s loan sharks can’t harass me. And here—I’ve got URLs for opening offshore accounts! What do you know about setting those up, Grant?”
The attorney leaned closer to her laptop screen, absently accepting a flute of fizzing champagne from Trevor. “I have colleagues who do it all the time for corporate clients diverting assets away from taxes. Cat, honey, you’re moving awfully fast here—”
“Not when you consider I’ve been looking into this stuff for months, as research for a book someday. Look!”
She clicked to another site…pointed at a listing of articles about how to find jobs and buy homes on the cheap, in places like Nicaragua and Guam and the Pacific Islands. “Here’s info on how to have my mail forwarded to a mail drop. Real estate listings for entire islands that cost less than this house, Trev!”
Her host handed her a glass with fizzy bubbles dancing around its rim. “Escape Artist dot com?” he demanded. “Cat, this sounds like something your husband should’ve looked into before—well, before he did such a number on you!”
“Makes it sound like there’s a whole frickin’ world of people from the States relocating to these places!”
“You’re right on the money, Bruce. Expatriates living abroad…for whatever reason,” she said, clicking through to her favorite bookmarked site. “And get a load of this place! I’ve been imagining it as my setting for a book—four bedrooms; rosewood staircase, cabinets, and floors. Wraparound balconies with a Jacuzzi facing the sunsets and a full view of the ocean, where you can watch the dolphins play. Lush tropical trees and flowering—”
“Cat, this place runs a million eight.”
“And your point would be?” Giddy triumph surged through her as she raised her glass to the three astounded men hovering around her laptop. “Why would I not want it? Even after the taxes on my jackpot, I’ll have plenty to spend on such a home. And with four bedrooms—”
“We could be your house guests!” Trevor crowed. He tapped his flute to hers, and the ringing of crystal lingered in the loft. “Here’s to Cat’s new life and new home!”
“Long may she wave!” Bruce called out. He downed half his champagne before Cat got her glass to her lips.
Ah, it was sweet, this victory. Far more exhilarating than the rush of cold fizz down her throat. Grant, ever the practical one, had taken her mouse to click on the pictures of this idyllic property, his indigo eyes narrowing.
“You’ll have to arrange for a viewing of this property, dear heart,” he mused aloud. “Pictures don’t always tell the whole story—”
“Of course I will! And I might find something just as nice for less!”
“—and you’ll need a passport to leave the US—”
“Got one.”
“—and before any of this can come to pass,” he continued, gazing at her over his champagne, “we’ll need to confirm your winnings with the lottery board and see if other winners share your pot. We’ll have papers to sign. Payments to arrange.”
Cat drained her glass, gazing at him over its rim.