Gettin' Lucky (Love and Laughter)

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Authors: Kimberly Raye

BOOK: Gettin' Lucky (Love and Laughter)
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He had buns that put Mel Gibson’s to shame.
Lucky blinked but he didn’t disappear.
They
didn’t disappear. Tight, tanned, muscular and curved just so... She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of workout would yield such spectacular results. Undoubtedly a rigorous one, with lots of flexing, pumping, grinding...
 
Reason kicked in and she inched backward into the shelter of the trees. She had to get out of there before he caught sight of her. But then the man scooped up several handfuls of water, doused them onto his body, and Lucky lost what little common sense she had. The muscles in his arms rippled, catching gleaming rays of sunlight. Water streamed over his shoulders, down the curve of his back and those spectacular buns.
 
Lucky wiped at a trickle of sweat Thank God she’d brought an extra package of chewing gum or her throat would be sandpaper—
 
Pop!
 
The bubble burst. And Tight Tush jerked around. Lucky threw away her gum disgustedly. How could she have forgotten about it? She clamped her eyes shut and held her breath. Maybe she’d be lucky. Maybe he hadn’t seen her. Lord knew she was due....
 
She heard a deep, rich voice drawl,
“Enjoying the view?”
Dear Reader,
 
Our heroines come in all kinds of shapes and sizes with the differing personalities to match, but one common trait is their reaction to that unexpected delivery...children! We have two very fun and different stories this month about a mom-to-be and an apprentice nanny.
 
In
Regarding Rita
by Gwen Pemberton, the entire town of teeny Hooperville is involved in waitress Rita Lynn’s pregnancy—and in the hunt for a suitable daddy candidate. Poor ex-city slicker Nate Morrow has no idea what’s about to hit him! Moreover the last thing the former divorce attorney wants is to marry, but the good folks of Hooperville have decided a wedding is just what they—and Rita Lynn—need.
 
Cowboy Tyler Grant needs a nanny real fast, so when Lucky Myers walks through his door to return his lost wallet he decides he’s found the right woman to look after his daughter temporarily. Wrong! Lucky is all heart, but she’s not much of a lady—which is what his ex-mother-in-law’s family expects. So Tyler ends up playing Henry Higgins to his own Eliza Doolittle, with the expected results...and ends up
Cettin
’
Lucky.
 
Enjoy our stories.
 
With love and laughter,
Malle Vallik
Associate Senior Editor
GETTIN’ LUCKY
Kimberly Raye
TORONTO • NEW YORK LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all....
Like my heroine Lucky, I’ve never been very lucky myself. Always a day late and a dollar short. No breasts out to here, or legs up to there, or tall, dark strangers beating down my door (except for the UPS guy, of course, but he charges me so I don’t think he counts).
 
Forever the optimist, however, I’m a firm believer that Lady Luck shines on even the unluckiest at least once. Sometimes twice, and I have a loving husband and rowdy toddler to prove it. (Okay, so maybe the toddler came from Lady You-don’t-know-what-real-work-is-until-you’re-crawling-around-under-a-highchair-chasing-runaway-peas, but hey, I’m an optimist.) So keep smiling and hoping, and if She hasn’t graced you with a smile yet, She will, at least once or twice. Make that three times—Hark! I think I hear the UPS hunk—er, man knocking right now!
—Kimberly Raye
For my mother,
Estella Adams, who gave birth to me,
raised me and most of all loved me.
Thanks, Ma!
 
And for my editor, Brenda Chin.
For her hard work, dedication and patience.
You’re the best!
1
F
OR CABDRIVER Lucky Myers, the only thing worse than bursting into tears was doing it smack-dab in the middle of Houston’s largest airport. On a busy Friday morning. And on a major PMS day.
“Yo, Lucky!” came the familiar male voice.
And in front of Buster would-you-look-at-the-hooters-on-that-one? Sinclair, fellow cabdriver and male chauvinist extraordinaire.
If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all. She swiped at her eyes and handed the passenger who got out of her cab a travel bag.
“Thanks so much for being understanding,” said the woman, dressed in a cherry-red suit. “And for listening.” She shoved her suitcases at a nearby baggage clerk. “I just knew I was going to miss my plane, but thanks to you I’ll make it!”
A treacherous tear slid from the corner of Lucky’s eye and she dashed it away, disgusted with herself. Geez, she could sympathize with the woman, but she didn’t have to do it in front of hundreds of travelers. Besides, people had heart attacks every day. Just because the woman’s father had suffered a severe one and was, at this moment, hanging on to life by little more than a thread didn’t give Lucky any call to act like a blubbering idiot. She hardly knew her, much less the father.
But she knew how the woman felt. Lucky had lost her own father last year. When the passenger had climbed into the back of the cab and poured out her tearful story, Lucky might very well have been hearing her own. Minus the husband and daughter waiting at home in some little rinky-dink Texas town, of course.
She sniffled, struggling for her composure as Buster headed straight for her.
Black hair slicked back à la Elvis, he wore a neon-pink flamingo-print shirt unbuttoned to midchest and a dozen faux gold chains around his neck. Shirttails flapped in the wind, giving an occasional glimpse of the overstuffed waistline of his much-too-tight white jeans.
But the absolute worst thing about Buster, who looked at anything with breasts, was the fact that he never even spared Lucky a glance. Not that she wanted him to, mind you. But it was the principle of the thing. All of her life, male attention had passed her by in favor of better faces, bigger breasts, more shapely rear ends. That bad-luck thing again.
“Hiya, babe,” he said, coming up to her. “You just drop off the fare you picked up at the Four Seasons? I bet she tipped out the wazoo. Stella said she was loaded.”
Oh no! Lucky shot a watery gaze at her meter box. A sick feeling churned in the pit of her stomach. Forget the tip. The woman hadn’t even paid her fare and Lucky had been too worried about helping the poor, distraught thing unload her luggage to notice.
She whirled, blinking furiously as she strained to see through the crowd. She caught a glimpse of a red skirt, red three-inch heels clattering behind a cart of speeding luggage.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Wait!” But the flash of color was gone and so was Lucky’s eighty-dollar cab fare.
Eighty dollars. The sick feeling graduated to full-blown nausea. More tears burned her eyes.
“So how much tip—whoa, do my eyes deceive me? Can this be tough-as-nails Lucky Myers
crying?”
“I’m not crying. It’s just allergies.”
“You have allergies and moved to Texas? This is the pollen capital of the South...” The words faded when a blonde in a halter top swayed past them. “Wow. Would you look at the hoo—”
“Is that all you ever think of?” Lucky snapped.
“What can I say? I’m a romantic kind of guy.” He waggled his bushy black eyebrows, the expression like two caterpillars doing a mating dance.
Lucky couldn’t hold back a smile. Buster’s outlook on women was so totally clueless, it was hard to keep a straight face, much less stay mad at the guy. “So you skipped all the way across the taxi lane to tell me what a Valentino you are?”
“Actually, no,” he said, his hand going to his hip pocket. Due to the extraordinary tightness of his pants it took him a good thirty seconds before the envelope finally squirmed free. “When I checked in for my shift at the cab company, the mailman was there with this letter. Stella asked me to give it to you since I was headed your way. She thought it might be important.”
Lucky took the envelope, her attention stuck on the return address: Marshall Nursing Home. She ripped open the seal and read the statement of account. The dread churning in her stomach settled into a hard lump by the time she reached the sum printed at the bottom. Oh no.
“Your grandma?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s okay, right?”
“She’s fine.” Lucky folded the letter and slipped it into her pocket. “Everything’s fine, as long as I win the lottery.”
“That nursing home really eating up your cash?”
“Yeah, but it’s worth it.” Despite her mood, she managed a smile. “It’s got this beautiful flower garden, with roses and daisies. That’s why Daddy moved her down here from Chicago.” Her eyes burned with a new bout of tears and she blinked. “He managed the expense when he was alive, and so will I. There’s still three weeks until the payment is due. I’ve got nearly two thousand saved for school...” Suddenly the lump in her stomach felt like burning lead. If she drained her savings, she wouldn’t be able to pay her tuition in the spring. At the rate she was going, she would never finish her teaching degree.
But her granny was the only family she had left now.
“I can do this,” she said, more for herself than Buster. “With my savings and a few extra shifts on the weekends, I can make the three thousand.”
“Whew!” Buster whistled. “Three thousand. I guess bowling with me and the guys is out tomorrow night then.”
“I’m afraid so.” Though that in itself was a blessing. Lucky wasn’t in the mood for another Saturday night spent watching Buster and the guys guzzle beer and ogle women at the Bowl-A-Rama. She’d started Saturday night bowling in a desperate effort to beef up her nonexistent social life. How was she supposed to meet Mr. Perfect if she didn’t get out and mingle? Unfortunately, Mr. Perfect, or even Mr. Almost Perfect, didn’t hang out at the Bowl-A-Rama.
A good man. That’s all she wanted out of life. That, her teaching degree and three thousand dollars. The last two she could earn, but the man was another story. How could she find herself a good one when even the not-so-good ones didn’t give her the time of day?
“Geez, babe,” Buster went on, “we’re bowling against the Fast Cab Kangaroos and we really need that arm of yours—” He fell silent when he saw an attractive woman, bags in hand, standing near his abandoned cab. “Later, babe. I think I’m in love.” He made a beeline for his taxi.
“Lucky?” came the female voice from the CB mounted on Lucky’s dash. “Are you finished at the airport yet? I’ve got a fare going from the Hyatt Regency to the convention center.”
“I’m on it, Stella,” she said into the mike. Then she climbed into the back seat of her cab and bent to retrieve a gum wrapper. “Holy Moses,” Lucky breathed when she spotted a man’s wallet stuffed with a wad of bills. Not fives, or tens, or even twenties, she quickly discovered. No, there were a few fifties, and the rest were hundreds. Hundreds!
The answer to Lucky’s feverish prayers. No more overtime. No more double shifts...
Before she could drop to her knees and thank the powers above, the red-dressed woman’s desperate words replayed in her head.
“One minute my poor daddy was fine, and the next, he was at Death’s door. I just don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him.”
The wallet had to belong to the woman. Lucky had a habit of checking the cab after every customer, and she knew it hadn’t been there before the stop at the Four Seasons. Sympathy swept through Lucky like a heat wave through Houston. The woman had probably been in such a hurry, she hadn’t bothered to transfer the money and credit cards to her own wallet. She’d simply grabbed her husband’s and rushed off to be with her father. Now the poor thing had no money, no wallet, nothing. She was destitute. Unless...
Lucky could turn over the wallet to the police and let them make the return. But with her string of rotten luck, it would likely get stuck in a bunch of red tape. No, speed was important. The woman’s father was dying. Death didn’t wait for the mail, or even Federal Express.
Lucky opened the wallet, her gaze flicking over the dozens of credit cards peeking from the leather slots. Finally she found an ID card with a man’s name—undoubtedly the husband’s —and an address for their hometown. Locking up her cab, she rushed to a nearby pay phone and dialed Information.
“I’m sorry, but that number is unlisted,” the operator said.
“But this is an emergency, a major emergency. You see, one of my customers left her husband’s wallet in my cab, and I’m afraid she doesn’t have any other money and she’s off to see her father who’s dying and—”
“Rules are rules. Would you like me to check another number for you?”
“No,” Lucky replied. “Thanks, anyway.” She slid the receiver into place and walked back to her cab.
She knew what she should do, but that would mean giving up an entire day’s worth of work. The nursing-home bill burned through her pocket.
Remember me?
Remember Granny and the three-thousand-dollar flowers? On the other hand, her conscience wouldn’t let her forget the woman’s frantic voice. “He’s dying. My poor daddy’s dying.”
“Okay,” she finally said. She hauled open the door to her cab. “The Lucky Express to the rescue.”
Reaching into her own pocket, Lucky counted out eighty dollars and slid the money into the fare box. She’d do the Good Samaritan thing, take the wallet back to the husband, then collect her eighty bucks from him. Better to cover the fare with her own money and wait an extra day than go back and tell Stella and the other cabbies she’d been stiffed.
That would be almost as bad as the crying—
She was
not
crying.
Lucky placed the wallet on the seat next to her, revved the engine and pulled into the flow of traffic. Grabbing the CB mike, she radioed Stella that she was taking the day off, much to the other woman’s astonishment. A quick road trip and the wallet predicament would be solved. Then she could concentrate on making the nursing-home money, and go back to hunting for Mr. Perfect.
Of course, she’d have to try a new hunting ground. The Bowl-A-Rama was a complete bust. Maybe she could answer one of those singles ads. Or call one of those dating services. Yeah, those were possibilities. Okay, so maybe they were more like long shots, but a girl had to start somewhere.
 
HELL. She’d driven straight into the middle of hell.
Only hell could be this hot in October.
Just her luck, she thought, blowing a large bubble with her chewing gum. Lucky had never lived up to her name. Now, if she’d been called
Un
lucky Myers, well, that would have hit the nail right on the head. A flat tire, a broken air conditioner and at least a hundred extra miles she hadn’t counted on—all in the past four hours. What a way to kill a Friday afternoon. So much for this trip being simple.
At least it couldn’t get any worse, she thought as she blew another bubble. She hefted the tire she’d just changed into the trunk, then leaned against the bumper to catch her breath.
On second thought... The pressure built and she crossed her legs. Blast that six-pack of diet soda! She should have thrown every can back into the cooler when she’d stopped in Ulysses, the last resemblance to a town she’d seen since getting stuck in a maze of back roads. It seemed that Tyler Grant, the name written on the ID card, didn’t actually live in Ulysses. The Grant spread was just “a spit and a throw past the Grant County limits,” the waitress at Big Bubba’s Diner had told her when she’d stopped to ask directions. If only Lucky knew exactly how far “a spit and a throw” was, she’d be in business.
Somebody upstairs was definitely out to get her. First the heat, and now acres and acres of land with no sign of civilization, much less a rest room. Right now, she’d settle for a tree. A quick glance around at the endless stretch of pasture-land, and she realized that was about as likely as Brad Pitt beating down her door for a date—
Come on, Brad!
Her gaze fixed on a patch of trees in the distance.
She slammed the trunk closed. “Sorry, baby, but you’re on your own for the next few minutes.” She stroked the Chevy’s hood. Her father had loved this car with a vengeance, and Lucky had loved him. and while he might be gone, there was a part of him still with her. She smiled and patted the Chevy again. “Don’t go picking up any men without me.” Then she grabbed a few tissues and headed for the white wooden fence lining the road.
Shade!
her heated body screamed.
Relief!
cried the six-pack yearning to be free.
She walked and sweated. And sweated and walked, until her cab disappeared behind her and perspiration drenched her T-shirt. Finally, after a good ten minutes dodging her way past cow patties, she reached the blessed shade. Not merely a few trees, she quickly realized, but a full-blown forest. She walked deeper before finding a spot to relieve the drought for a patch of thirsty grass.

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