Just for Kicks

"I don't know what to do about him," Carly Jacobsen complained to her friend Michelle as they paused to accommodate a group of Japanese tourists wanting their pictures taken with real live Las Vegas showgirls. "He's stubborn, opinionated and just won't listen.""A typical male, in other words."She muffled a snort. "Yeah." Her feet were killing her, but she smiled prettily for the camera and tried not to feel like an Amazon as she towered above the tourists. Thank God she and Michelle were wearing the silky brunette twenties-era flapper-style wigs from the final act instead of the towering headpieces from an earlier number. That made them only a foot taller than everyone."Look at it this way," Michelle murmured over the shut-terbugs' heads. "At least you can be grateful he's got four legs instead of two like the guy I live with.""There is that," she agreed. "Rufus has been one tough pup to train, but at least I have some eventual hope heistrainable.""Which is more than you can say for most men.""Right." Carly had never had any interest in living with a man. And yet... "On the other hand, you get regular sex. I only have the dimmest memory of what that was like."They struck a couple more poses before easing away from the tourists, who bowed, smiled and murmured their thanks. Carly flashed them a genuine smile in return. She really liked the Japanese. They were polite, and that was very much appreciated, because she didn't see lovely manners every day in her business. Especially among the male half of the population."You wanna stop for a drink?" Michelle asked as they crossed the casino a moment later."No, I'd better get home. I've got hungry pets to feed." Leaving Michelle at the little lounge they often frequented, she headed toward the dressing room to change into her street clothes before going home. She'd been dancing inla Stravaganza,the big production show at the Italian-themed Avventurato Resort Hotel and Casino, for so long now that she rarely heard the sounds of the casino around her any longer. But she was particularly tired tonight after spending the early morning hours wrestling with the dilemma of Rufus. He was the newest of her babies, as she called her rescued pets, and fretting over how she was going to get him past his recalcitrant behavior had made it all but impossible to fall asleep. He simply refused to be trained. And thanks to her new neighbor, she was very much afraid that the clock was ticking on the mutt's fate.So now every clang and clatter of the electronic slots, every rattle of the balls in the roulette wheels and triumphant yell or commiserating groan of the gamblers crowding the casino floor kept time with the headache beginning to throb behind her left eye. Which perhaps explained why, when a petite white-haired lady clutching a bucketful of silver dollars slammed into her with an oversize handbag, Carly, who was generally sure-footed as a mountain goat, staggered backward.A little clumsiness would have been the end of it, except she'd just climbed the two stairs that divided the high-stakes slot machines from their humbler brethren. Her stumble back sent the heel of her right T-strap stepping off into space, and, unbalanced, she grabbed for the railing while automatically tightening her core muscles to lift her shoulders back into alignment with her hips.Her fingers brushed the railing but it slid through her grip. And although she straightened enough to keep from back-flopping, she landed in a graceless heap on the floor, her right leg twisting beneath her.An obscenity hissed through her teeth as pain exploded in her ankle.There were exclamations all around and a vague sense of people crowding close. Someone bent over her. "Are you all right, miss?"She looked up at a man with light brown hair, backlit by the garish lights of the hundred-dollar slots at the top of the stairs. When his face swam into view, she noticed in a hazy sort of wayAndersen, Susan is the author of 'Just for Kicks', published 2006 under ISBN 9780778323150 and ISBN 0778323153.