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There was always a great deal of confusion, more noise, and a touch of panic to flavor the arrival of embarking passengers. Some were already a bit travel weary from their flight into Miami, others were running on the adrenaline of anticipation. The huge white ocean liner, the Celebration, waited in port—their ticket to fun, relaxation, romance. When they crossed the gangway, they would no longer be accountants, assistant managers, or teachers, but pampered passengers assured of being fed, spoiled, and entertained for the next ten days. The brochures guaranteed it.
From the rail of the Observation deck, Serena watched the flow of humanity. At that distance she could enjoy the color and noise, which never lost its appeal for her, without being caught in the inevitable tangle of fifteen hundred people trying to get to the same place at the same time. The cooks, the bartenders, the cabin stewards, had already begun the orgy of work that would continue, virtually uninterrupted, for the next ten days. But she had time. Serena relished it.
These were her idle moments—before the ship pulled out of port. She could remember her first experience with a cruise liner. She'd been eight, the youngest of the three children of financial wizard Daniel MacGregor and Dr. Anna Whitefield MacGregor. There had been first-class cabins, where the steward had served her hot buns and juice in bed. Serena had enjoyed it the same way she enjoyed her tiny cabin in the crew's quarters now. They were both an adventure.
Serena remembered, too, the day she had told her parents of her plans to apply for a job with the Celebration. Her father had huffed and puffed about her throwing away her education. The more he had huffed, the more pronounced his soft Scottish burr had become. A woman who had graduated from Smith at the tender age of twenty, who had then gone on to earn degrees in English, history, and sociology didn't swab decks. And even as Serena had assured him that wasn't her intention, her mother had laughed, telling Daniel to let the child be. Because at six foot three and two hundred and twenty pounds, Daniel MacGregor was helpless against what he called his females, he did just that.
So Serena had gotten her job and had escaped from what had become endless years of study. She'd traded her three-room suite in the family mansion in Hyan-nis Port for a one-room broom closet with a bunk on a floating hotel. None of her coworkers cared what her I.Q. was, or how many degrees she'd earned. They didn't know her father could have bought the cruise line lock, stock, and barrel if he'd had the whim, or that her mother was an authority on thoracic surgery. They didn't know her oldest brother was a senator and the younger a state's attorney. When they looked at her, they saw Serena. That was all she wanted.
Lifting her head, she let the wind take her hair. It danced on the breeze, a mass of blond, the rich shade of gold one found in old paintings. She had high, slanting cheekbones and a sharp, stubborn jaw. Her skin refused to tan, remaining a delicate peach to contrast with the violet-blue of her eyes. Her father called them purple; a few romantics had called them violet. Serena stubbornly termed them blue and left it at that. Men were drawn to them because of their uniqueness, then to her because of the elegant sexuality she exuded without thought. But she wasn't very interested.
Intellectually, Serena thought a man was a fool if he fell for a shade of irises. It was a matter of genetics after all, and had little to do with her personally. She'd listened to accolades on her eyes for twenty-six years with a kind of detached wonder. There was a miniature in her father's library of his great-grandmother, another Serena. If anyone had asked, she could have explained the process of genetics that resulted in the resemblance, down to the bone structure and eye shade—and the reputed temper. But the men she met were generally not interested in scientific explanation, and Serena was generally not interested in them.
Below her, the crowd flowing up the gangway was thinning. Shortly the calypso band would be playing on the Lido deck to entertain the passengers while the ship prepared to sail. Serena would enjoy staying outside, listening to the tinny, rhythmic music and laughter. There would be a buffet laden with more food than the well over one thousand people could possibly eat, exotic drinks, and excitement. Soon the rails would be packed with people wanting that last glimpse of shore before all there would be was open sea.
Wistfully, she watched the last stragglers come on board. It was the final cruise of the season. When they returned to Miami, the Celebration would go into dry dock for two months. When it sailed again, Serena wouldn't be on it. She'd already made up her mind that it was time to move on. When she'd taken the job on the ship, she had been looking for one thing—freedom from years of study, from family expectations, from her own restlessnes. She knew she had accomplished something in the year on her own. Serena had found the independence she had always struggled for, and she had escaped the niche so many of her college friends had been determinedly heading for: a good marriage.
And yet, though she'd found the freedom and independence, she hadn't found the most important ingredient: the goal. What did Serena MacGregor want to do with the rest of her life? She didn't want the political career both her brothers had chosen. She didn't want to teach or lecture. She wanted excitement and challenges and no longer wanted to look for them in a classroom. They were all negative answers, but she knew whatever it was that would fill the rest of her life wouldn't be found by floating endlessly in the Bahamas.
Time to get off the boat, Rena, she told herself with a sudden smile. The next adventure's always just around the corner. Not knowing what it would be only made the search more intriguing.
The first long, loud blast of the horn was her signal. Drawing back from the rail, Serena went to her cabin to change.
Within thirty minutes she entered the ship's casino dressed in the modified tux that was her uniform. She had pulled her hair back in a loose bun at the nape of her neck so that it wouldn't tend to fall all over her face. Her hands would soon be too busy to fool with it.
The chandeliers were lit, spilling light onto the red and gold art deco carpet. Long curved windows allowed a view of the glassed-in Promenade deck, then the blue-green stretch of sea. The remaining walls were lined with slot machines, as silent as soldiers waiting for an attack. Fussing with the bow tie she could never seem to get quite right, Serena crossed to her supervisor. As with any sailor, the shifting of the ship under her feet went unnoticed.
"Serena MacGregor reporting for duty, sir," she said crisply.
Turning, a clipboard in one hand, he looked her up and down. Dale Zimmerman's lightweight boxer's build skimmed just under six feet. He had a smooth, handsome face he dedicatedly tanned, winning crinkles at the corners of his light blue eyes, and sun-bleached hair that curled riotously. He had a reputation, which he assiduously promoted, of being a marvelous lover. After his brief study of Serena, his grin broke out.
"Rena, can't you ever get this thing right?" Tucking the clipboard under his arm, Dale straightened her tie.
"I like to give you something to do."
"You know, lover, if you're serious about quitting after this run, this is going to be your last chance for paradise." Tugging on her tie, he lifted his eyes to grin into hers.
Serena cocked a brow. What had begun a year ago as an ardent pursual on Dale's part had been tempered into a good-humored joke about Serena's refusal to go to bed with him. They had become, more to his surprise than hers, friends. "I'm going to hate to miss it," Serena told him with a sigh. "Did the little redhead from South Dakota go home happy?" she asked with a guileless smile.
Dale's eyes narrowed. "Anybody ever tell you that you see too much?"
"All the time. What's my table?"
"You're on two." Taking out a cigarette, Dale lit it as she walked away. If anyone had told him a year before that a classy number like Serena MacGregor would not only hold him off but make him feel fraternal, he'd have recommended a good psychiatrist. With a shrug he went back to his clipboard. He was going to regret losing her, Dale reflected, and not only because of his personal feelings. She was the best damn blackjack dealer he had.
There were eight blackjack tables scattered throughout the casino. Serena and the seven other dealers would rotate from position to position through the rest of the afternoon and evening, with only a brief, staggered dinner break. Unless the playing was light, the casino would stay open until two. If it was heavy, a few tables might stay open until three. The first rule was to give the passengers what they wanted.
Other men and women clad in tuxedos went to their stations. Beside Serena the young Italian who had just been promoted to croupier stood at table two. Serena gave him a smile, remembering that Dale had asked her to keep an eye on him.
"Enjoy yourself, Tony," she suggested, eyeing the crowd that already waited outside the glass doors. "It's going to be a long night." And all on our feet, she added silently as Dale gave the signal to open the door.
Passengers poured in. Not in a trickle—they rarely trickled in the first day of a cruise. The crowd would be thin during the dinner hours, then swell again until past midnight. Dress was casual—shorts, jeans, bare feet—the uniform for afternoon gambling. With the opening of the door Serena heard the musical sound effects of arcade games already being fed on the Promenade deck. Within minutes the sound was drowned out by the steady clatter of slots.
Serena could separate the gamblers from the "players" and the players from the "lookers." There was always some of each group in any batch of passenger...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
MacGregor series,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The MacGregors: Serena & Caine: Playing the Odds\Tempting Fate (Mass Market Paperback)
I love The way Nora Roberts takes you into the saga of the MacGregors.
Everyone who reads this saga is in for a pleasant, funny ride, and some action and fear for the characters. I hope to read more of Nora Roberts books
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great series,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The MacGregors: Serena & Caine: Playing the Odds\Tempting Fate (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a series of nine books with a prequal. It would have been nice to know and then read them in order. Not knowing, I found and read the prequal last. Good series and recommend for relax reading.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Dated, but still entertaining...,
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This review is from: The MacGregors: Serena & Caine: Playing the Odds\Tempting Fate (Mass Market Paperback)
This book is a re-release of two of Nora Roberts books featuring the MacGregor family from 1985. Whoa, it's been a long time since I read anything written this long ago. I forgot how corny some of the romantic scenes could be. Between that and societal changes...lots of sexual harassment, smoking indoors, mentions of typewriters and telegrams. It was kind of fun to revisit this older style of romance. And quite honestly, beyond the corniness and the cliche conflicts, I did enjoy reading both of these stories.Playing the Odds Serena & Justin Story Overview: Serena MacGregor had been looking for a little independence and some much-needed adventure, but Justin Blade was not what she had in mind. The stakes were high, and Justin was betting on changing Serena's mind about him. But when this fiery heiress upped the ante on the cool Comanche gambler, steamy didn't begin to describe the results.... My Rating: B- My Review: Daniel MacGregor is the patriarch of the MacGregor clan. He has mentored Justin for 10 years, but in that time, Justin has never met Rena, Daniel's daughter. When Daniel convinces Justin to take a vacation cruise, Justin doesn't think anything of it. As a professional gambler, he is immediately enchanted with a female dealer who works on the ship, Serena. Unbeknownst to either of them, they have been set up by Daniel to meet. In this book, the cruise ship made the book. I am not a huge fan of books based around gambling, but I loved the ambience provided by the ship and the exotic ports of call. I enjoyed the MacGregor family clan and the story line of Justin's past. These books are based around family and the family dynamics were defined and highlighted very early so that you realize how important the family ties are to the overall story. I liked that. Justin had a HORRIBLE childhood, so that makes it so that he appreciates the MacGregors all that much more. Overall, this was entertaining. I was just sad at how dated it did feel. The cheeseball lines during the sex scenes did provide some fun giggles though.... Tempting Fate Caine & Diana Story Overview: Attorney Caine MacGregor had a reputation for being a demon in and out of the courtroom. The dashing young attorney rarely met a case--or a woman--he couldn't win. But Diana Blade was no ordinary lady. Caine yearned to break down her icy wall of control and release the passionate woman within. He might be able to convince Diana to form a business partnership, but could he entice her to risk everything for the love of a MacGregor? My Rating: B My Review: For me, this book seemed to have a bit more depth than the first. Diana is Hunter's (hero from the first book) younger sister. When their parents died, he abandoned her to a harsh, strict aunt and Diana basically grew up without knowing any love in her life. That has left her with HUGE scars when it comes to relationships. She has been ruled with an iron fist by her aunt her entire life. Now that she is out on her own and able to make her own decisions, she NEVER plans to open herself up to someone else. She never wants to give anyone else ANY power over her life OR the ability to leave and hurt her like her entire family did when she was little. The flip side of that is Caine who has always had a very easy time with women, so when Diana turns him down, he is hurt and devastated. There is a lot of emotion in this book. And again, this is a book that shows its era because there is a LOT of sexual harassment in it too. One minute Caine will be attacking Diana and telling her that he is going to bed her...it's a guarantee. Then the next minute, he's trying to forge a work relationship. It was almost funny how unacceptable that would be now. No woman in her right mind would give a guy like that ANY leeway in her life....personal or professional. We have definitely changed in the last 27 years.
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