Lucky Charmed

by Sharla Lovelace

  Sunglasses… Sully…

  He wasn’t balding.

  Dear God, don’t let every road start leading there. He had a woman now. One with perfect eyes and hair and skin, and could probably literally fuck while standing on her hands.

  “Hey.” I shoved another salsa-laden chip in my mouth.

  “Want to order some queso?” he asked.

  “Absolutely,” I mumbled around the chip.

  Monte laughed. “Hungry?”

  “You have no idea,” I said. “So what’s up?”

  “I think someone’s getting ready to rob me.”

  I stopped chewing and looked at him. “What?”

  He raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and dipped a chip into the salsa bowl.

  “I’m not kidding,” he said. “There were guys in boats the other night, just outside my fence. With flashlights and weird bulky stuff. Around midnight.”

  “Like real boats, or the little rowboats?”

  The city of Charmed had bought rowboats for the pond back when I was in middle school. Randomly placed, anyone could use them for free to go anywhere on the pond without checking them in or out, so unfortunately it was a fifty-fifty shot if there would actually be one at the park—the most populated area. Most of the time, they congregated off the high-dollar docks across the way.

  “Bigger,” he said. “Like flatbeds.”

  “Did they break in?”

  “No, they kept to the rocks and went up the bank to the caves,” he said. “They didn’t know I was watching from upstairs. Do you know the caves I’m talking about? Off that cove that goes into the woods?”

  Caves… cove… sex… Sully… way too many times…

  Damn it.

  I cleared my throat. “Vaguely.”

  “So they went that way for a while and then came back,” Monte said. “Then headed back across.”

  I widened my eyes, waiting for the ball to drop. “And?”

  “And that’s it,” he said. “They’re obviously casing me out.” He shoved another chip into his mouth.

  “Jesus, Monte, there are four other homes on that bank,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “Not to mention—call the police, maybe?”

  “I did!” he said, pointing a chip at me. “They came and looked around, but since there was no actual attempt at a break-in, they won’t take it seriously.”

  I held out my hands. “And so what am I supposed to do?”

  “Be waiting,” he said matter-of-factly. “Because when it happens, I’m suing their asses.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t be for real.”

  A pretty waitress stopped at our table. “Are y’all ready to order?”

  “Please, God, yes,” I said. “And put it on one bill; he’s buying.”

  He smiled at her with his I’m awesome like that eye-gleam. “Sure, go right ahead.”

  He ordered nachos and I ordered fajitas, because it was the most expensive thing on the menu. I watched this big hulk of a man eat nachos like he was at the Ritz Carlton eating caviar. So precise. Every chip had to have an equal amount of toppings on it. It was exhausting.

  “So what was going on at the Blue Banana when I got there?” Monte asked, spooning pico de gallo onto a precariously loaded chip by (I swear) counting the tiny cubes.

  “Nothing interesting,” I said before shoving a third of an overloaded fajita into my mouth. Hey, it was about to leak.

  “Looked pretty interesting,” he said. “You and the mayor having problems?”

  What the hell was with that? “The mayor and I have no problems,” I mumbled around my food. “We aren’t married anymore.”

  “He sure looked like he was all up in your business,” Monte said.

  I tilted my head and finished chewing. “Nothing new there.”

  “And the carnie guy?”

  I blinked and gave him my best hard stare. Monte knew? “How do you know about the carnie guy?” I shook my head. “How would you even know he was the carnie guy?”

  Monte shrugged. “Everyone knows. And he just bought out the damn pond I live on, so of course I know who he is.”

  I dropped my mangled fajita. “Sully bought the whole area? He bought out y’all’s land?”

  Monte shook his head and laughed like he’d just told a fart joke. “No, I’m exaggerating, but he bought everything from the levee to about a mile into the woods.”

  The woods. “The—”

  “—caves,” we said in unison.

  Of course he did. He didn’t own a house yet, but he owned our caves.

  The caves.

  Not ours.

  Shit.

  “So what was he doing?” Monte asked.

  I frowned. “Talking.” Making Dean angry. Giving me heart palpitations.

  I took another giant bite to dissuade further questions that were none of his business and chewed as slowly as I could, but he waited me out.

  “What are we going to do about my robbers?” he asked finally.

  How sad was it that I was glad he was back on that topic?

  “They aren’t robbers, Monte,” I said.

  “You think that’s normal activity in the middle of the night?” he blustered.

  “No, probably not,” I said. “But so far, it’s not illegal either.”

  “So I have to wait till they kill me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Now they’re homicidal, too? Do you have a good alarm system?”

  He pouted. “Yes.”

  “Then you’re good,” I said. “And if they try something, the police will be there.”

  “What about you?”

  “You don’t need a lawyer at a robbery, Monte. And I’m about to be on vacation.”

  “Yeah?” he asked. “For how long?”

  “Longer by the day.”

  Chapter Four

  I glanced at the digital numbers on the bottom right of my computer screen. Four o’clock. Not late, but I wanted to head out in time to run by the vet’s office for Ralph’s special dog food (Lanie had truly lost her damn mind) and city hall to pay my water bill (because I waited too long to mail it and they were too stubborn to get on the internet) and change my clothes before I had to report to my mother’s carpentry boot camp.

  I’d been hitting the trailer park’s books pretty hard since after Rojo’s, even through the Mexican food coma. Not counting the respite I took to pull up the permits and sales records on the Lucky Charm entertainment complex.

  Because yes, I was being that girl. The sappy one who couldn’t stop poking the ant pile. Sully’s name was everywhere. His loopy signature could have been an autograph from a movie star.

  Sullivan Hart.

  Liar.

  Breaker of hearts.

  Crusher of dreams.

  And wow, was I being just a tad melodramatic?

  I was too old for this. I started to click out of the documents when familiar handwriting caught my eye. I scrolled down till I saw it again. The other signature. The one I’d been staring at for years. I flipped a page in the dog-eared ledger in front of me, and there it was.

  Larry Landell.

  Why was Larry’s signature on a lease cancellation for the trailer park? There was another one—Albert Bailey—the eccentric old man that no one ever saw who owned all the land on the northwest side of town, which included the pond, the developed wealthy residential section above it, and part of the woods. And the land containing the trailer park, but Larry said that that section wasn’t part of the Bailey sale. He told my mother that they were fine. But if he cancelled the lease on the land, then where was he taking the park?

  She couldn’t possibly know this. Well, she shouldn’t have known about Sully, but I needed to let that go. This was important. She would have said something. Hey baby, I might need to come live with you would have been a key conversation, and I was pretty sure I’d remember it. Larry lied. He—

  “He sold out,” I said, hearing my voice crack.

  Hell, it might not have been
much of a childhood home, but it was mine. It was Allie’s. It was still home to my mom, and to Allie’s dad, and to twenty-something other families.

  And Sully knew that.

  My blood ran hot. I shut down my computer, grabbed my wallet and keys, and headed out the door. Ralph was still good on food for another day; the vet could wait. I rushed out and into my car.

  Damn it, the water bill couldn’t wait. That was okay, though. That was a quick two minutes in and out, and then I could storm the trailer park office and kick Larry in the nuts.

  How dare he do this on the sly. How dare he screw my mother over. She was the woman he’d fawned over for as long as I could remember. How could he treat her like this?

  At city hall, I pulled into the parking lot and stopped my car crookedly next to a big black Chevy truck. There’d better not be a line. I had a bone to pick with Mr. Larry Landell, and I was ready to burst out of my skin to go tell old Lar what he could do with that fucking ledger.

  “Frosty!”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered under my breath, looking straight ahead as I walked up the sidewalk. Maybe he’d give up. Maybe I’d vanish after so many steps. Maybe a bee would sting Alan Bowman on the tongue, and he wouldn’t be able to talk anymore.

  No such luck.

  I turned and walked backward, hoping he would get that I was in a big hurry. Alan held up his hands and smiled like we had all the time in the world to shoot the shit, which was interesting considering just last month he’d basically called me a stranger-fucking whore.

  “Sorry, Alan, I’m on my way to about five different places,” I said, turning forward again as I all-but-lunged for the door.

  Unfortunately, he jogged the last bit to catch up, and held the door open for me. Damn.

  “Haven’t seen you since—”

  “—since Lanie’s house became Lanie’s house?” I finished for him as we breezed in. The old building always smelled like bleach and mildewed paper. Today there was a hint of a cinnamon candle burning. “Yeah, I remember. Good times.”

  Alan’s already reddened skin glowed under his spiky blond hair. Last month had been a banner time for him, as he’d teamed up with Lanie’s asshole cousin to try to schmooze her inheritance. He and his obnoxious flirt-a-holic wife, Katrina, had stayed kind of under the radar ever since, thank God.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Alan said. “We don’t need to revisit all that.”

  I grabbed a pen from a stand with a peeling Formica top.

  “Don’t we?” Alan would never resist the opportunity to bring up—

  “Hot damn, if it’s not your old boy-toy,” he said, a grin stretching his face.

  “What?”

  I followed the direction of his gaze, and had to stifle a groan at the sight of the man standing at the counter who was evidently everywhere. I felt it in the fucking soles of my feet. But for once, that was okay, because after Larry, he was next on my list to chew up. I wasn’t picky about the order.

  “Have y’all gotten to catch up yet?” Alan’s voice buzzed like an annoying fly.

  “Not just yet,” I said, mostly to myself.

  “Well, my buddy Dean—”

  “Bye, Alan” I walked away.

  I was done with sentences that included the words Dean, ex, mayor, boyfriend, um—most recently boy-toy. Oh, and Frosty. My name was Carmen Frost. If people couldn’t manage those two words, don’t fucking bother me.

  I might have been a little on edge.

  I heard Sully’s voice as I joined the line at the counter, standing a few feet behind him. It was reasonable; I was going to the same damn counter. I could be in that line. I could be in four other ones, as well, but this one was feasible. I just had to keep my anger focused and not let that deep, honeyed, lazy-sexy tone of his settle into my bones.

  “Five twenty-three Maple,” he told the clerk. “I don’t have a statement yet. It’s only been two weeks since I had the utilities turned on.”

  Five twenty-three Maple. Crap. I couldn’t unhear that. Now that address was permanently seared into my brain. Did Kia live there with him? Did their toothbrushes hang out together? Did they watch TV on the couch with his head in her lap?

  Ugh. I pushed my thoughts into other places. Places not Sully-touched. I needed to get Lanie my spare car key, so she and Nick could pick up my car at the rental office after I exchanged it for the convertible. And call Wyatt, a boy down the road from me, about mowing the grass while I was gone. I might need to clear all the junk out of my spare bedroom for my mother to come live with me.

  And I was back, but in a good way.

  “Thank you,” Sully said. He turned around and stopped short. Because I wasn’t backing up. “Shit.”

  “Hi.”

  Sully stared at me in surprise, his eyes showing a multitude of things before he could shut it all back down. One of them was pain.

  It disarmed me. For about three whole world-tumbling, which-way-is-up seconds, I lost my focus. I lost my thoughts. Sully felt pain as he looked at me? Something about me hurt him? What the living hell?

  “What?” he said.

  I pulled myself back together.

  “You took the trailer park,” I said in a low voice.

  He blinked and I watched him catch up. Watched the recognition flicker across his face as he realized where I was coming from. It wasn’t a long trip.

  “I didn’t take anything,” he said in an equally low voice.

  “Don’t play me,” I said. “I saw the records. You bought out Larry for the trailer park.”

  “I bought the land from Bailey,” Sully said, glancing around and lowering his voice even more. “I wasn’t even interested in that section, but Bailey wanted to unload it, so he made me a good deal with the rest.”

  “And Larry?”

  Sully squared his jaw. “Go outside,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m really tired of being yelled at in public today.”

  “I’m not yelling,” I growled.

  He ignored me and walked out the door. He didn’t even hold it open, letting it slam in my face as I followed him. That man.

  I shoved the door open and walked out, standing with my arms crossed. “We’re outside,” I said. “Proceed.”

  “Larry Landell didn’t have to do a damn thing,” he said. “He was leasing the space from Bailey; he could have kept on with me. He chose to end the lease.”

  I blinked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Sully held his arms wide. “Take it up with him.”

  I shook my head. “So why did no one tell me this? Hell, you’ve clearly known for a while, why didn’t you?”

  He looked at me like I was crazy. “Excuse me?”

  “My mother still lives there, Sully,” I said. “Other people live there. Some don’t even own the trailers. My mom doesn’t. I don’t think they’ve even been notified.”

  “That’s Larry’s job, not mine,” he said defensively.

  “This is me,” I yelled. Okay, I yelled that time. “You knew where I used to live. You couldn’t give me a little heads-up? You come sliding into town, trading in your free spirit for a ball and chain, and everyone in this whole fucking town knows but me. No one says a damn word, and you can’t even let me know that my mother’s about to be evicted?”

  Sully took a step toward me. I took one back.

  “When exactly was I supposed to do this, Carmen?” he said, his upper lip twitching. “At Brewster’s as you ran away? Or the Blue Banana this afternoon when you did the same?”

  I backed into a railing, halting my retreat, and he kept coming, inching closer. My heart sped up twice as fast, and my fingers tingled as he got close enough to touch.

  Sully pointed at the ground. “Because right here is the longest conversation you’ve stuck around for.”

  Speak. Don’t lose your shit. I focused on getting the words in my head to form on my tongue.

  “I’m here now,” I managed. “Astound me.”

  He was too cl
ose. Entirely too close, as his eyes dropped to my lips. My mouth parted of its own volition, and everything inside me got dizzy hot. Once upon a time that look would have accompanied a hello, love and a kiss that would have started slow and then rocked my world. His gaze went heavy for a half-second, as if he too forgot his bearings for a moment. Then he shut his eyes and backed up. I grabbed the railing and squeezed until my knuckles turned white.

  What the hell was that? I was mad at him. Remember that. He—okay, maybe he didn’t purposely screw over Larry and my mother, but there was still the rest. There was Kia he was all but flaunting at me—which meant he had no business rocking my world or thinking about it or making me think about it. We were in the past. And speaking of the past, there was enough shoved down and buried anger there to fuel a village, so that was plenty. There were no more hello loves in our near or distant future.

  “How was I supposed to know your mother still lived there?” he said, running both hands over his face. “This wasn’t personal.”

  I laughed out loud. “Bullshit.” I stepped forward that time, pushing the boundary. “You can feed me a lot of lines, Sully Hart. And Lord knows you have—”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Bullshit again.” Being the one to move forward and make him back up filled me with adrenaline. “You did well. Said all the right things, all the pretty words.”

  Sully stopped moving and became a wall. “Don’t.”

  “And I believed it all,” I said. “But to tell me that moving here after all these years wasn’t personal?” Something took over my brain. Something brave. Or stupid. I laid my palm against his chest, feeling the heat through his shirt. The muscles in his face twitched before his hand closed over mine like a reflex. “You could have chosen any town, anywhere. You chose mine. That’s fucking personal.”

  Liquid fire burned behind my eyes as I pulled my hand free and marched back into the building. At least I had the snap about me to remember I’d come there for a reason. Granted, I didn’t know what it was—my hands shook, and the one he’d held felt cold without his touch, but hey, I’d walked the right direction.

  “Are you okay?” the girl asked when I made it to the window.

  “What is this line for?” I whispered, my voice tremulous.