The Lucky Charm (The Portland Pioneers)

by Beth Bolden

  “And dinner the other night? That wasn’t social?”

  “We had dinner. It was social between the two of us,” Izzy hissed, finally losing the last of her grip on her temper. He was being purposefully difficult and it made her alternatively want to bash him on the head and push him up against the nearest wall.

  “Ah,” he sighed. “So the issue at hand is the rest of the world wanting to be social with us.”

  “You make us sound like a pair of swingers,” Izzy grumbled.

  “In my dreams,” he chuckled darkly. “Actually, scratch that. If I had you in my bed, I wouldn’t be up for sharing you with anyone.”

  Definitely one of the up-against-the-wall moments, Izzy decided.

  “Moving on,” she ground out after an appropriately frozen silence.

  “Fine, fine, I won’t play,” he teased. “You’re just so fun to play with, Dalton.”

  “I’m going to ignore that comment,” she began, but he interrupted her.

  “No you’re not, but that’s not the point. The point is I’ve already solved the little problem of the public and us.”

  Izzy wanted to argue with Jack that there was no “us” but she had to pick her battles with him. He was in exemplary form tonight and even on her toes, it was going to be hard to outmaneuver him.

  “Fine,” she sighed. “We can have room service in my room.” Frankly, she’d thought of the idea back when she’d first read the text. That had been her first, instinctual reaction, but she’d smothered it, hoping—and kind of dreading—that she’d be able to avoid temptation altogether.

  “Hell, no. I am not sitting in a closed-off little box eating an overcooked slab of meat they try to advertise as a steak.”

  “Then I’m not sure what your solution is,” Izzy said crisply.

  “I found a place where nobody is going to recognize us,” he said triumphantly.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  “Oh, it’s not like…unclean or anything.”

  “You’ve seen it?” she challenged.

  “I mean, I’ve seen pictures. I found it on Urbanspoon.”

  “And here I thought there was no category for off-the-beaten-path dive where famous baseball stars couldn’t possibly be recognized,” she said sarcastically. “I’ll have to look that one up, ASAP.”

  “Cute,” he said. “I’m not that famous. And you’re even less famous than I am.”

  “Way to sugarcoat it,” Izzy said, suddenly exhausted with this argument. Which had probably been his intent the whole damn time.

  “Just say you’ll come and I’ll text you the address,” he said, and there was a pleading in his voice that she recognized—she’d felt it inside when she’d tried talking herself into another free pass for the night.

  “Fine,” she finally capitulated. “But you had better be right about this, Bennett.”

  “I swear. It’ll work out,” he promised, and Izzy realized with a little thrill of fear that she believed him.

  “Text me the address,” she said instead, because the kind of damage Jack Bennett could wreak if he knew just how much she trusted him was a terrifying prospect.

  “See you in fifteen.”

  The cab driver had given her a dubious look when she’d told him the address Jack had texted her. For a moment, she almost looked up the restaurant on her own Urbanspoon app, but she was trying this new trust thing, so she didn’t.

  When the taxi pulled up to the facade of the restaurant—in a scarily rundown strip mall, no less, located in a part of Detroit she’d purposefully never been—Izzy felt a little bit of dread settle in her stomach.

  She shoved a few bills at the cab driver and got out before he could say a word of caution against stopping—never mind eating—at the restaurant Jack had chosen.

  He was just inside, at a booth near the back. Waving off one of the bored waitresses, she walked to the table and kept her head down the whole way.

  “Got you a present,” he said by way of a greeting. With a flourish worthy of Vanna White, he pulled a white cap sporting a bright-red Red Wings logo from under the cracked linoleum table.

  Izzy gingerly sat down and gave him a look that had made more than one man cry. “I’m confused.”

  “I was going to get you a Tigers hat, but then I realized how jealous I’d be seeing you wear another baseball team,” Jack said, leaning forward, his blue eyes twinkling.

  “Let me rephrase,” she said, pulling the cap on over her hair, and tugging the brim down low over her eyes. “I’m confused about your sudden insanity.”

  “I thought you’d like it,” Jack said, leaning back against the cracked vinyl seat. “Cloak and dagger and all that.”

  Izzy barely prevented her eyes from rolling back inside her skull. “A Red Wings hat is supposed to keep anybody from recognizing me? I thought I wasn’t the recognizable one.”

  “Oh,” he said, comprehension lighting up his features. “I got one for me, too. Well, actually, I got myself one first, then I thought you might feel left out.”

  The eye roll was too instinctive to her to catch this time around. “Of course,” she said, slapping the table loud enough to make Jack jump a little, “it’s a perfect disguise. Nobody would ever suspect a baseball player would be wearing a hat with a fucking sports logo on it.”

  “The other plan was me dressing up as James Bond, but I thought that might attract a little too much attention,” he said, all seriousness. Izzy refused to legitimize that bullshit with a response and grabbed the plastic menu from behind the aluminum napkin holder and blocked out his handsome, way-too-charming, face with it.

  “At least then we could have gone somewhere I wasn’t afraid to eat at,” she hissed under her breath.

  He laughed. Izzy refused to look up from her menu perusal, but truthfully, she hadn’t read one word.

  “I never picked you for a snob,” he said casually.

  Izzy dropped the menu down and met his amused gaze. “I’m not a snob. This is a dump. Two factual statements. Take from them what you will.”

  “I heard good things about their barbecue,” Jack said defensively. “Not from Urbanspoon, either. And I wanted to go and I figured it would be a place we could potentially both go. And sue me, I wanted to see you.”

  “Oh,” she finally said, because it was kind of hard to argue when Jack got all soulful and looked at her like the world and the sun and the stars revolved around her. Normally, when guys looked like that, she ran as fast as she could, but unfortunately, this time all she wanted to do was give him the same sticky-sweet look and play footsie with him under the table.

  Not for the first time, Izzy cursed Charlie’s affection for cholesterol. Maybe then she wouldn’t have met Jack Bennett under these terrible circumstances. Maybe they’d have met doing crossover publicity of some sort, she’d have given him some scorching look from under her lashes, begged Charlie to let her off early, and she’d have gotten a real date, instead of all this sneaking-around nonsense.

  Maybe she would have gotten some hot sex out of the whole bargain, too, but before that train of thought could leave the station, Izzy shut it down. Fast. It was hard enough to turn him down without her hormones joining the party.

  “So, what looks good?” he asked, changing the subject.

  Speaking would be tantamount to admitting she hadn’t read a word of the damn menu still so she made a generic humming noise and buckled down to actually read it.

  Izzy sucked down half her glass of lemonade and eyed her brisket remnants with wonder. “You weren’t wrong,” she said, mystified at how he could have been so right. “This place is amazing. Probably the best barbecue I’ve had in years. Maybe ever.”

  Jack just shrugged as he polished off another rib bone and dropped it with a clatter to the plat
e in front of him.

  “No, seriously,” she said, glancing down at her own empty plate. “That was incredible.”

  He glanced up at her shyly, almost as if he couldn’t believe she was praising him, and just like that, Izzy knew she was a goner.

  Of course, it was the glimpse of insecurity that did her in, she inwardly railed as she grabbed one of the wet-nap packets the waitress had dropped off with the check. She made a big show of ripping the packet open and wiping each finger individually, thus avoiding his eyes for at least thirty seconds. Get yourself together, Dalton.

  But she couldn’t. He’d charmed her, whether she’d let him or not. Suddenly, the train was pulling out of the station, and she was along for the ride, and there was pretty much nothing she could do about it. She should be angry, but instead she felt buoyant, as if the lemonade she’d drunk with her brisket had been champagne instead.

  There was fear, too, mixed in with all those bubbles of happiness. She could be found out, and sent back in disgrace to Seattle, to Charlie’s disappointment and her own ruined hopes.

  “This was fun,” she said way too brightly. “I’m glad you suggested it.”

  He eyed her suspiciously. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Actually, she was a wreck but she wasn’t about to admit that to him.

  “You’re being nice.”

  “I’m always nice,” she argued, and admittedly that sounded a hell of a lot more like her.

  “You are,” he agreed, “but in a snarky, sarcastic, almost charming way that makes people realize you were nice only an hour after you’ve left the room.”

  Izzy cocked her head and considered the thought. “Couldn’t you just say I was nice?”

  He shrugged. “I give you the truth, Dalton. I can’t promise you can handle it.”

  “Devoid of all tact. Got it.” Izzy looked up and the waitress was back, but this time, recognition flickered in the depths of her brown eyes when she looked over at Jack. Something sank deep in Izzy’s stomach that had nothing to do with the meat she’d just devoured.

  “You’re Jack Bennett, aren’t you?” she asked, snapping her gum loudly as punctuation.

  Izzy glanced over at Jack and prayed that he’d understand her look of utter panic: deny, deny, deny.

  “Yeah, I am,” he said, smiling way too sweetly up at the woman who’d been destined to get a truly mediocre tip before this moment.

  We’re going to have to do some work on that unspoken communication thing, Izzy thought with panic welling up inside her. Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, she tugged the brim of her stupid cap down lower, over her eyes, and pulled her loose hair over her other shoulder. Her long dark hair was easily her most noticeable feature and if this waitress was somehow clued in to who Jack was, the chances of her going unrecognized were slim to none.

  “My boyfriend’s from Eugene,” the waitress continued and stupid, stupid, stupid Jack just kept smiling up at her like this was all no big deal. “So he watches lots o’ Pioneers games. I’d forgotten you guys were in town this week.”

  “Great, we really appreciate the support,” Jack enthused.

  The woman pulled out her order pad and produced a pen from the stained apron tied around her waist. She didn’t even ask him, she just shoved the items across the table toward Jack.

  He didn’t lose a beat though, and within seconds, the pad was open in front of him and he was scrawling his name across it. And then, just as suddenly as she’d appeared to destroy Izzy’s life, the waitress was gone.

  Izzy barely waited until the woman’s back was turned to hiss, “Oh my god, we are so screwed.”

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Jack asked, pulling his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans. He opened and casually tossed a few bills down on the table. “She didn’t have any clue who you were.”

  “Yeah, until she goes home and tells her boyfriend that Jack Bennett was with a girl and suddenly there’s rumors flying that you’re dating and the next thing everyone wants to know is who it is.”

  “Someone I like,” he said, smiling impudently, clearly not interested in participating in her freakout.

  “We can’t do this anymore. It isn’t safe,” she announced. “That was the last time.”

  “It was also the first time,” Jack said, sliding out of the booth and giving her a skeptical look. “I think you need to take a deep breath and realize this isn’t the nightmare scenario that you’re concocting in your head. Nobody honestly cares who I have dinner with, with the exception of Foxy and that’s just ’cause he’s nosy and practically a girl under his movie-star exterior.”

  “Don’t be patronizing,” Izzy hissed, getting to her feet. “Where are you going? Did you call a cab?”

  “I texted in a request about five minutes ago. They should be here soon.”

  “Good,” she said, “we need to get out of here before she realizes she didn’t get a picture of me.”

  “Overreacting still,” he laughed as he opened the front door for her. Izzy shot him a venomous look as she walked through the door and took up residence on a stretch of dingy sidewalk where it would be easy to see the cab pull up.

  While they waited, Izzy came up with half a dozen angry, clever retorts, but she stayed silent, mostly because when it came down to it, she didn’t want to fight with him—even if they were only friends. He’d been kind and generous, and it wasn’t his fault that she was ridiculously attracted to him and that fact scared the crap out of her.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trivialize your feelings,” he said, turning toward her, a trite expression on his face. “I just like hanging out with you and I don’t want to lose that. Even if that means we eat in a tiny box of a hotel room and I have to eat what room service calls a steak.”

  His blue eyes shone with sincerity and that alone should have sent her running away, but even Toby witnessing this entire forbidden conversation couldn’t have moved her an inch.

  “You really mean that,” she said softly, gazing up at him. He wasn’t the tallest guy in the universe, but she wasn’t tall either, and if she tilted her head up just right, she could almost imagine how well they’d fit together. Only a few steps closer, and she’d be able to find out.

  “I told you. You’ll get nothing but the truth from me,” he said in a low voice. She thought he might have taken a step closer, too, because suddenly he was practically on top of her and it was both the best thing in the world and the worst.

  Izzy’s throat was suddenly parched and she wanted the last gulp of lemonade she’d left in her glass. As she stared up into his face and could nearly see what he wanted written there, she could feel her good intentions waver a fraction. Enough that he could probably see it on her face, too, but before he could do anything about it, a loud honk startled them and Izzy looked up to see the cab driver smirking at the two of them.

  She blushed as she realized just how she and Jack had looked. Like two people about to make a huge mistake, she reminded herself, you should thank him for interrupting that…whatever that was.

  Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and gestured at the cab. “Your chariot, my lady.”

  She rolled her eyes at his sarcasm and just like that, the charged moment of a second ago had disappeared but she still felt it in the butterflies deep in her tummy, fluttering at the thought of what had almost happened. If they were going to stay in from now on, alone and uninterrupted, she’d have to be a lot more careful about that ridiculous tension that kept cropping up between them.

  What could she even say to him? I’m sorry, but could you try being a little less charming? Could you make your eyes less blue? Your forearms less muscular? Your smile less tempting?

  Izzy rolled her eyes at her own moronic thoughts and leaned back on her seat. �
�Make sure he drops you off two blocks before the hotel,” she reminded Jack, more out of habit than anything else.

  Dusk had passed and it was officially dark now, but she still thought she could see the flicker of hurt in his eyes at her reminder, but he only nodded.

  They were almost at the hotel when he finally spoke. “I told you everything would be fine, and it will be. I promise.”

  She almost argued with him, but something stopped her. She wasn’t sure what it was. The sincerity in his voice when he’d told her he’d always tell her the truth? The fact that she was pretty sure he’d rather cut off his own arm than hurt her? All Izzy knew was that she couldn’t disagree with him. He’d promised and he was Jack Bennett and he’d make it alright.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Before she’d started this job, Izzy hadn’t realized just how long the baseball season actually was. Well, technically she had known it was 162 games long, but 162 games looked a lot different as an observer.

  As an official doer, 162 games was pure hell.

  Izzy staggered down the hallway to the hotel room and cursed the day anyone had had the brilliant idea to have people hit a ball with a wooden stick and run around a muddy field.

  This was the fourth, and thankfully the last city in a long road trip that had already been going for three weeks. Also known as the longest road trip the Pioneers would take this year. And as it turned out, the equivalent to the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno.

  After about three miles of endless and identical hallways, Izzy finally reached her room. Of course, her hotel room always seemed to be the farthest from the elevator. In fact, Izzy was just about willing to bet that Toby had had something to do with this. His travel “arrangements” during this particular jaunt around the United States of America had taught her a career as a travel agent was not in his near future.

  She leaned against the door and let her forehead rest against the wood. Right now, she should be digging her key card out of her bag but the chances of that happening any time in the next five minutes were pretty terrible. Her body didn’t know what time zone it was actually in, she was starving and sleep deprived, and she was sick and tired of lugging around about two hundred pounds of extra baggage. The arm holding up her laptop bag, easily the worst offender of the lot, drooped down and the bag slid to the floor with a heavy thump, but she didn’t have any shits left to give.