Chapter 1

It’s not a bachelorette party until the woo-ing starts.

“Woooooooo!”

Mary smiled when her passengers’ yells penetrated the partition to the driver’s compartment. But when the motor whirred to retract the convertible top and the sleek limousine started to sound like a human-powered ambulance, she knew the bachelorette party had taken a turn for the worse.

Not necessarily for the ladies partying in the back, but for the upholstery.

She glanced in the rearview mirror as she slowed to stop at a red light on the Las Vegas Strip.

Yep, the bridal party was standing on the leather seats, the petite blond maid of honor still wearing her stiletto heels.

Mary winced. Her brother was going to be pissed if she brought back Nick Cage with punctured leather.

The privacy screen was still up, so she couldn’t simply holler back, “No shoes on the seats!” like her brother would’ve done. She put on the flashers. Ignoring the middle finger of the driver who zoomed around her, she got out of the driver’s side, circled the front of the Escalade’s hood, and stopped on the sidewalk next to the rear passenger door.

“Hey, ladies.” She scanned each of the seven bridesmaids to identify the least-drunk one.

“Girl, I told you to keep the top on,” a curvy Black woman said.

“I did! Look!” The blond bride, Bristol, glanced down at her shirt, which had “I’m the Bride” printed on it, not the most original slogan Mary had seen in many years of sending out bachelorette parties in the family’s limousines. “No one’s throwing beads anyway, not like Mardi Gras at home.”

“Not your top,” her friend said. “The limo’s top.”

“But I wanted to see the lights.” Bristol pointed her champagne flute—Mary had stocked the limo with plastic, never glass for these types of parties—at the glowing Paris Las Vegas hotel. “I couldn’t see the tippy top of the Eiffel Tower through the roof,” she pouted.

“Ladies,” Mary repeated, “it’s not a good idea to stand while the limo is moving, but if you do, I need you to take off your shoes.”

Finally noticing her, Bristol shouted, “Hey, Mar-eee!” She threw out her arms, knocking into her maid of honor, who toppled from the seat.

“Ooh, is she okay?” Mary leaned over the side of the limousine. The woman on the floor was the bride’s sister, Mary recalled. Normally, she’d have memorized the names of all the party guests, but she’d had to step in for Rafe at the last minute, unprepared. All night she’d mentally called the maid of honor “Bristol’s sister,” which her exhausted brain had finally shortened into “Sistol.” Sitting on the carpeted floor, Sistol swayed.

“Oh, hey, let’s get you some fresh air.” Vomit in the vehicles was the worst, and Mary couldn’t spend hours cleaning and deodorizing the carpet tonight. She needed a good night’s sleep for her big event tomorrow. She opened the side door, reached inside, and tugged Sistol onto the sidewalk. Her uncooperative pinky finger twinged, and she shook out her hand.

Perspiration glittered on the woman’s pale forehead. “I don’t feel so good.”

“That’s okay,” Mary said. “I’ve got you.” Gripping her upper arm, she shoved through the crowd of tourists and partiers on the sidewalk toward a trash can. When Sistol belched, Mary grasped her blond hair in one hand and pressed the other into her back, bending her over the opening just in time.

After emptying the contents of her stomach, too much booze and hardly any food, into the bin, Sistol straightened, still pale. “Sorry, I…”

“Don’t worry about it, honey.” Mary rubbed a circle on her back, the way her mother used to do when she was sick. “It happens all the time. Drink some water, and you’ll be better in no time.” It might even be true. She couldn’t be older than twenty-five. Alcohol treated Mary better when she was in her twenties. Now thirty-six, she’d have a two-day headache if she drank as much as these ladies had.

But why come to Vegas for a bachelorette party if you weren’t going to get drunk off your ass, dance in the limousine, and scream until your throat hurt? It was all part of the package Forza Elite Motors offered, with a fully stocked bar inside the limousine for cruising the Strip until two A.M.

Someday, Mary hoped to get a larger cut of the wedding action, beyond transportation. Then she’d be able to focus on the party planning she loved and leave the driving to someone else. Plus, with the extra money coming in, her brothers wouldn’t have to work such long hours. None of them were as young as they used to be. Fatigue led to injuries like Rafe’s.

She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes until two. Time to wrap it up so she could snag a few hours of sleep before she had to set up her brand-new booth at the wedding expo.

Snugging an arm around Sistol’s waist, Mary led her back to the group of women, who’d attracted a crowd of equally drunk men. Bristol leaned over the side of the limo and huffed at the short veil clipped to her rhinestone tiara.

Gently, Mary pushed herself between the men and the car and opened the door to let the still-pale Sistol inside. “Sorry, guys, can’t you see she’s taken?” She shut the door.

“Not yet, she ain’t.” The cowboy hat–wearing guy closest to the limo sucked on the straw of his glowing yard-long cocktail.

The drunken douche would’ve never talked back to either of her brothers. It was one benefit of their tank-like builds. “Afraid so,” Mary said. “And her fiancé’s a lot bigger than you. Think Jason Momoa.”

“Whoa.” The guy stumbled back.

The bride protested, “No, he’s—”

“In fact,” Mary interrupted, “it’s time to get you back to him. Night, guys. Ladies, shoes off if you’re going to stand on the seats.” She checked that the women followed her instructions, then circled around to the driver’s seat and punched the ignition. The engine purred to life like her brother Michael’s cars always did.

Michael had offered to drive the party tonight. But he’d spent the day repainting his pet project, a ’71 Mustang Mach 1, and the paint fumes always gave him a headache. Her other brother Rafe, who was scheduled to drive tonight, had broken his finger in the shop when a car hood had unexpectedly crashed down.

Rafe had argued that he could still drive with his splint, but years later, she remembered the agony of a broken finger. She’d been only eleven and all too aware of her family’s precarious finances when she’d hidden her hand in the pocket of her school uniform skirt. It was only later, when the side of her hand swelled and she couldn’t hold a pencil, that she finally told her dad what had happened and he took her to the ER. By then it was too late, and her pinky was permanently crooked.

She’d taken better care of her baby brother than that, driving him to the ER herself and putting the enormous deductible on her credit card. He couldn’t drive tonight’s bachelorette party with the pain meds, and none of their part-time employees were available that night. That left her, the co-owner of Forza Elite Motors, to do it.

Someday, if her plans worked out, they’d have full-time employees who weren’t named Forza to pick up the slack. But until she’d achieved her dream of branching out into event planning, she was stuck as the backup chauffeur.

Signaling, she pulled the limo into the porte-cochère of La Villa. The hotel’s location toward the end of the Strip meant it wasn’t quite as crowded as the larger ones in the prime locations, but Mary was glad to see people entering the revolving door. She hoped it would be even busier when she came back in a few hours for the wedding expo.

She heaved her tired body from the driver’s side, circled the hood, and opened the rear passenger door. The fresh air had done its job, putting color back in Sistol’s cheeks. She leaned on a friend as she shuffled toward the door.

Bristol waved exuberantly. “Greg!”

The groom, a slender man no taller than Mary and certainly no Jason Momoa, scurried toward the limo.

Bristol bounded to him and all but fell into his arms. “Why aren’t you at your bachelor party?”

“They’re still in the suite watching…uh, a movie. But I missed you.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “Did you have fun?”

“The best time. Thanks to Mary.”

Mary realized only then that she’d been watching the couple like a creeper. She busied herself by scanning the interior for forgotten shoes and handbags. She picked up a tiara, which had “MOH” spelled out in rhinestones.

“Can you give this to Sis—to your sister?” She held it out to Bristol, but Bristol was lip-locked with her groom.

Mary sighed. She’d seen some couples too caught up in strippers and porn to remember what they were celebrating during their weekend in Vegas. But Bristol and Greg were adorable. He’d left his bachelor party to check on his bride, and now they’d spend the night together.

Would she ever find a love like that?

She shook it off. She didn’t have time for romantic love. Besides, she had all the love she needed from her brothers. Her family. And tomorrow at the wedding expo, she’d find customers for her new side hustle, enough to pay off Rafe’s medical bill and maybe even enough to find the security they all craved.

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