Thankful In Vegas: Thankful In Vegas series, #1

By Marilyn Vix and Lynda Belle

Do dreams really come true? 

They can in Las Vegas.

Fran Hurley is a maid at a Las Vegas hotel. Her dreams of being a showgirl have not materialized after moving to Las Vegas. In the middle of her cleaning shift, she breaks down, slumping into the towels of her maid cart. Along comes Dex Luxom, the owner of the hotel. Concerned why one of his employees is having a breakdown, he whisks her to the entertainment department of his hotel and gets her placed in one of the shows. 

But her luck doesn't stop there. Dex is interested in Fran, and won't give up easily. Haunted by the fact she looks like his deceased wife, he can't stay away from her. When Fran discovers he is a gambler, she decides she needs to take a chance with Dex, and finally be thankful she's in Las Vegas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shadowcat Publishing
• Release date: Feb 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386126447

Marilyn Vix

Marilyn is a paranormal romance novelist. She enjoys the characters that just don't fit in. From witches to time traveling researchers, she is letting her imagination soar to explore new worlds and write all the details down. Marilyn has traveled to Paris, London, Sydney, and Munich. She loves to include these in her settings as much as possible. Best of all is letting her reader enjoy them through the perspective of a character. She currently lives in Northern California with her husband and cat. The cat, of course, is the center of attention.

Book preview

Thankful In Vegas

By Lynda Belle and Marilyn Vix

© 2016 Lynda Belle, Marilyn Vix

All rights reserved.

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This book is intended for readers eighteen or over. Adult content is meant for entertainment purposes. This book is a work of fiction. All the character names, places, or incidents are fictional. Similarities to real people, places, or events are coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of products that are mentioned in this work of fiction.

Thankful In Vegas

Format: Ebook edition

Author: Lynda Belle and Marilyn Vix

Cover Design: German Creative

Editor: Claudette Cruz

Beta readers: Alain Gomez 

© 2016 by Lynda Belle, Marilyn Vix

DAMN IT, WHY CAN’T anything go right today? She picked up the vacuum hose and looked down its tubing. She shook it. The tingling sound of something trapped brought a grimace to her face. She grabbed the tubing as if to choke the object out. Get out, damn it. Shaking it back and forth, Fran finally heard the plunk of something dislodging from the tube. It looked like false teeth.

Yuck. She put it on her cart in a bag to take to lost and found later. I’ve found worse, she said to the room. She moved the blonde hair out of her eyes and got back to cleaning the hotel room on the floor assigned for this shift.

A whole year in Vegas. And she had nothing to show for it but a job as a maid. Sure, it paid the bills, but she was hoping she would have been farther than just this job. She was hoping that some of the dancing auditions she had gone to would have paid off. But nothing had happened.

She emptied the trash under the desk and moved to the bathroom. She could smell it before she entered. Vomit was dried around the toilet’s edges. She wasn’t looking forward to this one. She walked back to her cart in the hall to get the heavy-duty cleaner. If she sprayed most of it on the counter and around the toilet, it would be easier to clean up. Sighing, she got on her knees to get at the mess.

If just one audition had gotten her on stage, she would be so happy right now. At this point, she didn’t care anymore. As long as she didn’t have to scrub one more toilet, clean up one more pile of vomit, she’d be happy for anything as long as it got her a paycheck involving any stage in Vegas. Well, except one kind of stage. She had drawn the line at stripping. Her Midwest values had kept her from going that far, at least for now.

This hadn’t been anywhere near to how her grandmother had described being a showgirl in Vegas. She would listen for hours to the stories about the costumes, the glitter, the fabulous feeling of being onstage and hearing the applause. Her grandmother always perked up and had a faraway look when she talked about it. When she announced she wanted to be a showgirl when she grew up, her grandma had paid for her dance lessons. But she hadn’t planned on coming to Vegas and being just a maid. This was not her plan.

She drove the promise to her grandmother from her mind. It kept popping into her head. She could hear her grandma’s older voice crackle with concern. Promise me you’ll give it just a year. No more, no less. Then come home. Fran shook her head. She’d been here for ten months now. Her year was almost up.

She wiped up the last of the vomit, filled the toilet paper, and finished with the room to move on to the next. One after another. It never changed.