Lucky in Love (2 page)

Mallory reached out for her hand and squeezed it. “You’ll find something. I know it.”

“I hope you’re right.” Grace let out a long, shaky breath. “Sorry to dump on you. Guess I’d been holding on to that all by myself for too long, it just burst out of me.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Amy licked frosting off her finger. “That’s what dark, stormy nights are for. Confessions.”

“Well, I’d feel better if you guys had one as well.”

Mallory wasn’t big on confessions and glanced at Amy.

“Don’t look at me,” Amy said. “Mine isn’t anything special.”

Grace leaned in expectantly. “I’d love to hear it anyway.”

Amy shrugged, looking as reluctant as Mallory felt. “It’s just your average, run-of-the-mill riches-to-rags story.”

“What?” Mallory asked, surprised, her fork going still. Amy had been in town for months now, and although she wasn’t shy, she was extremely private. She’d never talked about her past.

“Well rags to riches
to rags
would be a better way of putting it,” Amy corrected.

“Tell us,” Grace said, reaching for another piece of cake.

“Okay, but it’s one big bad cliché. Trailer trash girl’s mother marries rich guy, trailer trash girl pisses new step-daddy off, gets rudely ousted out of her house at age sixteen, and disinherited from any trust fund. Broke, with no skills whatsoever, she hitches her way across the country, hooking up with the wrong people and then more wrong people, until it comes down to two choices. Straighten up or die. She decides straightening up is the better option and ends up in Lucky Harbor, because her grandma spent one summer here a million years ago and it changed her life.”

Heart squeezing, Mallory reached for Amy’s hand, too. “Oh, Amy.”

“See?” Amy said to Grace. “The town sweetheart. She can’t help herself.”

“I can so,” Mallory said. But that was a lie. She did like to help people—which made Amy right; she really couldn’t help herself.

“And don’t think we didn’t notice that you avoided sharing any of
your
vulnerability with the class,” Amy said.

“Maybe later,” Mallory said, licking her fork. Or never. She shared just about every part of herself all the time. It was her work, and also her nature. So she held back because she had to have something that was hers alone. “I’m having another piece.”

“Denial is her BFF,” Amy told Grace as Mallory cut off a second hunk of cake. “I’d guess that it has something to do with her notoriously wild and crazy siblings and being the only sane one in the family. She doesn’t think that she deserves to be happy, because that chocolate seems to be the substitute for something.”

“Thanks, Dr. Phil.” But it was uncomfortably close to the truth. Her family was wild and crazy, and she worked hard at keeping them together. And she did have a hard time with letting herself be totally happy and had ever since her sister Karen’s death. She shivered. “Is there a lost-and-found box around somewhere with extra jackets or something?”

“Nope. Jan sells everything on eBay.” Amy set her fork down and leaned back. “Look at us, sitting here stuffing ourselves with birthday cake because we have no better options on a Friday night.”

“Hey, I have options,” Grace said. “There’s just a big, fat, mean storm blocking our exit strategies.”

Amy gave her a droll look and Grace sagged. “Okay, I don’t have shit.”

They both looked at Mallory, and she sighed. “Fine. I’m stalled too. I’m more than stalled, okay? I’ve got the equivalent of a dead battery, punctured tires, no gas, and no roadside assistance service. How’s
that
for a confession?”

Grace and Amy laughed softly, their exhales little clouds of condensation. They were huddled close, trying to share body heat.

“You know,” Amy said. “If we live through this, I’m going to—”

“Hey.” Mallory straightened up in concern. “Of course we’re going to live. Soon as the snow lets up, we’ll push some branches out of the way and head out to my car and call for help, and—”

“Jeez,” Amy said, annoyed. “Way to ruin my dramatic moment.”

“Sorry. Do continue.”

“Thank you. If we live,” Amy repeated with mock gravity, “I’m going to keep a cake just like this in the freezer just for us. And also…” She shifted and when she spoke this time, her voice was softer. “I’d like to make improvements to my life, like living it instead of letting it live me. Growing roots and making real friends. I suck at that.”

Mallory squeezed her hand tight in hers. “I’m a real friend,” she whispered. “
Especially
if you mean it about the cake.”

Amy’s mouth curved in a small smile.

“If we live,” Grace said. “I’m going to find more than a job. I want to stop chasing my own tail and go after some happy for a change, instead of waiting for it to find me. I’ve waited long enough.”

Once again, both Amy and Grace looked expectantly at Mallory, who blew out a sigh. She knew what she wanted for herself, but it was complicated. She wanted to let loose, do whatever she wanted, and stop worrying about being the glue at work, in her family, for everyone. Unable to say that, she wracked her brain and came up with something else. “There’s this big charity event I’m organizing for the hospital next weekend, a formal dinner and auction. I’m the only nurse on my floor without a date. If we live, a date would be really great.”

“Well, if you’re wishing, wish big,” Amy said. “Wish for a little nookie too.”

Grace nodded her approval. “Nookie,” she murmured fondly. “Oh how I miss nookie.”

“Nookie,” Mallory repeated.

“Hot sex,” Grace translated.

Amy nodded. “And since you’ve already said Mr. Right never works out for you, you should get a Mr. Wrong.”

“Sure,” Mallory said, secure in the knowledge that one, there were no Mr. Wrongs anywhere close by, and two, even if there had been, he wouldn’t be interested in her.

Amy pulled her order pad from her apron pocket. “You know what? I’m making you a list of some possible candidates. Since this is the only type of guy I know, it’s right up my alley. Off the top of my head, I can think of two. Dr. Josh Scott from the hospital, and Anderson, the guy who runs the hardware store. I’m sure there’s plenty of others. Promise me that if a Mr. Wrong crosses your path, you’re going for him. As long as he isn’t a felon,” she added responsibly.

Good to know there were some boundaries. Amy thrust out her pinkie for what Mallory assumed was to be a solemn pinkie swear. With a sigh Mallory wrapped her littlest finger around Amy’s. “I promise—” She broke off when a thump sounded on one of the walls out front. Each of them went stock still, staring at each other.

“That wasn’t a branch,” Mallory whispered. “That sounded like a fist.”

“Could have been a rock,” Grace, the eternal optimist, said.

They all nodded but not a one of them believed it was a rock. A bad feeling had come over Mallory. It was the same one she got sometimes in the ER right before they got an incoming. “May I?” she asked Grace, gesturing to the smart phone.

Grace handed it over and Mallory rose to her knees and used the lighter app to look over the edge of the counter.

It wasn’t good.

The opened doorway had become blocked by a snow drift. It really was incredible for this late in the year, but big, fat, round snowflakes the size of dinner plates were falling from the sky, piling up quickly.

The thump came again, and through the vicious wind, she thought she also heard a moan. A pained moan. She stood. “Maybe someone’s trying to get inside,” she said. “Maybe they’re hurt.”

“Mallory,” Amy said. “Don’t.”

Grace grabbed Mallory’s hand. “It’s too dangerous out there right now.”

“Well, I can’t just ignore it.” Tugging free, Mallory wrapped her arms around herself and moved toward the opening. Someone was in trouble, and she was a sucker for that. It was the eternal middle child syndrome and the nurse’s curse. Glass crunched beneath her feet, and she shivered as snow blasted her in the face. Amazingly, the aluminum frame of the front door had withstood the impact when the glass had shattered. Shoving aside the thick branch, Mallory once again held the phone out in front of her, using it to peer out into the dark.

Nothing but snow.

“Hello?” she called, taking a step outside, onto the concrete stoop. “Is anyone—”

A hand wrapped around her ankle, and Mallory broke off with a startled scream, falling into the night.

If it’s a toss up between men and chocolate,
bring on the chocolate!

M
allory scrambled backward, or tried to anyway, but a big hand on her ankle held firm. The hand appeared to be attached to an even bigger body. Fear and panic bubbled in her throat, and she simply reacted, chucking Grace’s phone at her captor’s hooded head.

It bounced off his cheek without much of a reaction other than a grunt. The guy was sprawled flat on his back, half covered in snow. Still holding her ankle in a vice-like grip, he shifted slightly and groaned. The sound didn’t take her out of panic mode but it did push another emotion to the surface. Concern. Since he hadn’t tried to hurt her, she leaned over him, brushing the snow away to get a better look—not easy with the wind pummeling her, bringing more icy snow that slapped at her bare face. “Are you hurt?” she asked.

He was non-responsive. His down parka was open, and he was wet and shivering. Pushing his dark brown hair from his forehead, she saw the first problem. He had a nasty gash over an eyebrow, which was bleeding profusely in a trickle down his temple and over his swollen eye. Not from where she’d hit him with the phone, thankfully, but from something much bigger and heavier, probably part of the fallen tree.

His eyes suddenly flew open, his gaze landing intense and unwavering on her.

“It’s okay,” she said, trying to sound like she believed it. “It looks like you were hit by a large branch. You’re going to need stitches, but for now I can—”

Before she could finish the thought, she found herself rolled beneath what had to be two hundred pounds of solid muscle, the entire length of her pressed ruthlessly hard into the snow, her hands yanked high over her head and pinned by his. He wasn’t crushing her, nor was he hurting her, but his hold was shockingly effective. In less than one second, he’d immobilized her, shrink-wrapping her between the ground and his body.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, voice low and rough. It would have brought goose bumps to her flesh if she hadn’t already been covered in them.

“Mallory Quinn,” she said, struggling to free herself. She’d have had better luck trying to move a slab of cement.

Breathing hard, eyes dilated, clearly out of his mind, he leaned over her, the snow blowing around his head like some twisted paragon of a halo.

“You have a head injury,” she told him, using the brisk, no-nonsense, I’m-In-Charge tone she saved for both the ER and her crazy siblings. “You’re hypothermic.” And he was getting a nice red spot on his cheek, which she suspected was courtesy of the phone she’d hurled at him. Best not to bother him with the reminder of that. “I can help you if you let me.”

He just stared down at her, not so much as blinking while the storm railed and rallied in strength around them. He wasn’t fully conscious, that much was clear.

Still, testosterone and dark edginess poured off him, emphasized by his brutal grip on her. Mallory was cataloguing her options when the next gust hit hard enough to knock his hood back, and with a jolt, she recognized him.

Mysterious Cute Guy.

At least that’s how he was known around Lucky Harbor. He’d slipped into town six months ago without making a single effort to blend in.

As a whole, Lucky Harbor wasn’t used to that. Residents tended to consider it a God-given right to gossip and nose into people’s business, and no one was exempt. All that was known about the man was that he was staying in a big rental house up on the bluffs.

There’d been sightings of him at the Love Shack—the town’s bar and grill—and also at the local gym, and filling up some classic muscle car at the gas station. But Mallory had only seen him once in the grocery store parking lot, with a bag in hand. Tall and broad shouldered, he’d been facing his car, the muscles of his back straining his shirt as he reached into his pocket to retrieve his keys. He’d slid his long legs into his car and accelerated out of the lot, as she caught a flash of dark Oakleys, a firm jaw, and grim mouth.

A little frisson of female awareness had skittered up her spine that day, and even wet and cold and uncomfortable beneath him, she got another now. He felt much colder than she, making her realize she had no idea how long he’d been out here. He was probably concussed, but the head injury would be the least of his problems if she didn’t get him warmed up and call for help. “Let’s get you inside,” she said, ceasing to struggle beneath him, hoping that might calm him down.

No response, not even a twitch of a single muscle.

“You have to let me up,” she said. “I can help you if you let me up.”

At that, he seemed to come around a little bit. Slowly he drew back, pulling off her until he was on his knees, but he didn’t let go of her, still manacling both of her wrists in one hand. His eyes were shadowed, and it was dark enough that she couldn’t see their color. She couldn’t see much of anything but she didn’t need a light to catch the tension coming off of him in waves.

His brow furrowed. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s you who’s hurt.”

“No, I’m not.”

Such a typical guy response. He was bleeding and nearly unconscious, but he wasn’t hurt. Good to know. “You’re bleeding, and we need to get you warmed up, so—”

He interrupted this with an unintelligible denial, followed by another groan just before his eyes rolled up. In almost slow-motion, he began to topple over. She barely managed to grab onto his coat, breaking his fall with her own torso so he didn’t hit his head again. But he was so heavy that they both fell.

“Oh my God,” came Grace’s quavering voice. “That’s a lot of blood.”

Mallory squeezed out from beneath him and looked up to see both Grace and Amy peeking out from between the fallen tree branches and the door frame.

“Holy shit,” Amy said. “Is he okay?”

“He will be.” Mallory scooped Grace’s phone from the snow and tossed it to her. “I need help. I told him I’d get him inside but my car’s better, I think. My phone’s there, and I have reception. We can call for help. And I can turn on the engine and use the heater to warm him up.”

Amy leaned over him, peering into his face. “Wait.” She looked at Mallory. “You know who this is, right? It’s Mysterious Cute Guy. He comes into the diner.”

“You never told me,” Mallory said.

Amy shrugged. “He never says a word. Tips good though.”

“Who’s Mysterious Cute Guy?” Grace wanted to know.

“When you get reception on your phone, pull up Lucky Harbor’s Facebook,” Amy told her. “There’s a list of Mysterious Cute Guy sightings on the wall there, along with the Bingo Night schedule and how many women managed to get pulled over by Sheriff Hotstuff last weekend. Sawyer’s engaged now so it’s not as much fun to get pulled over by him anymore, but at least we have Mysterious Cute Guy so it doesn’t matter as much.”

Grace fell silent, probably trying to soak in the fact that she’d landed in Mayberry, U.S.A.

Or the Twilight Zone.

Mallory wrapped her arms around Mysterious Cute Guy from behind, lifting his head and shoulders out of the snow and into her lap. He didn’t move. Not good. “Grace, get his feet,” she said. “Amy, take his middle. Come on.”

“It’s karma, you know that, right?” Amy said, huffing and puffing as they barely managed to lift the man. Actually
dragged
was more like it. “Because you promised you’d go for the first Mr. All Wrong who landed at your feet. And here he is. Literally.”

“Yes, well, I meant a conscious one.”

“He’s going on the list,” Amy said.

“Careful!” Mallory admonished Grace, who’d dropped his feet. Too late. With the momentum, they all fell to their butts in the snow, Mysterious Cute Guy sprawled out over the top of them.

“Sorry,” Grace gasped. “He weighs a ton.”

“Solid muscle though,” Amy noted, being in a good position to know since she had two handfuls of his hindquarters.

Somehow, squinting through the snow and pressing into the wind, they made it to Mallory’s car. She hadn’t locked it, had in fact left her keys in the ignition, which Grace shook her head about.

“It’s Lucky Harbor,” Mallory said in her defense.

“I don’t care if it’s Never Never Land,” Grace told her. “You need to lock up your car.”

They got Mysterious Cute Guy in the backseat, which wasn’t big enough for him by any stretch. They bent his legs to accommodate his torso, then Mallory climbed in and again put his head in her lap. “Start the car,” she told Amy. “And crank the heat. Get my phone from the passenger seat,” she said to Grace. “Call 9-1-1. Tell them we’ve got a male, approximately thirty years of age, unconscious with a head injury and possible hypothermia. Give them our location so they can send an ambulance.”

They both did her bidding, with Amy muttering “domineering little thing” beneath her breath. But she started the car and switched the heater to high before turning toward the back again. Her dark hair was dusted with snow, making her look like a pixie. “He still breathing?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Because maybe he needs mouth to mouth.”

“Amy!”

“Just a suggestion, sheesh.”

Grace ended her call to dispatch. “They said fifteen minutes. They said to try to get him warm and dry. Which means one of us needs to strip down with him to keep him warm, right? That’s how it’s done in the movies.”

“Oh my God, you two,” Mallory said.

Amy turned to Grace. “We’re going to have to give her lessons on how to be a Bad Girl, you know that, right?”

Mallory ignored them and looked down at her patient. His brow was still furrowed tight, his mouth grim. Wherever he was in dreamland, it wasn’t a happy place. Then suddenly the muscles in his shoulders and neck tensed, and he went rigid. She cupped both sides of his face to hold him still. “You’re okay,” she told him.

Shaking his head, he let out a low, rough sound of grief. “They’re gone. They’re all…gone.”

The three women stared at each other for a beat, then Mallory bent lower over him. “Hey,” she said gently, knowing better than to wake him up abruptly. “We’ve got you. You’re in Lucky Harbor, and—”

He shoved her hand off of him and sat straight up so fast that he nearly hit his head on her chin, and then the roof of the car.

“We’ve called an ambulance,” she said.

Twisting around, he stared at her, his eyes dark and filled with shadows.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Fine.”

“Really? Because the last time you said that, you passed out.”

He swiped at his temple and stared at the blood that came away on his forearm. “Goddammit.”

“Yeah. See, you’re not quite fine—”

He made a sound that managed to perfectly convey what he thought of her assessment, which turned into a groan of pain as he clutched his head.

Mallory forced him to lie back down. “Be still.”

“Bossy,” he muttered. “But hot.”

Hot?
Did he really just say that? Mallory looked down at herself. Wrinkled nurse’s scrubs, fake Uggs, and she had no doubt her hair was a disaster of biblical proportions. She was just about the furthest she could get from
hot
, which meant that he was full of shit.

“Mr. Wrong,” Amy whispered to her.

Uh huh, more like Mr.
All
Wrong. But unable to help herself, Mallory took in his very handsome, bloody face, and had to admit it was true. She couldn’t have found a more Mr. All Wrong for herself if she’d tried.

Ty drifted half awake when a female voice penetrated his shaken-but-not-stirred brain.

“I’m keeping a list of Mr. Wrongs going for you. This one might not make it to the weekend’s auction.”

“Stop,” said another woman.

“I’m just kidding.”

“I still vote we strip him down.” This was a third woman.

Wait. Three women? Had he died and gone to orgy heaven? Awake now, Ty took stock. He wasn’t dead. And he had no idea who the fuck Mr. Wrong was, but he was very much “going to make it.” He was stuffed in the back of a car, a
small
car, his bad leg cramping like a son-of-a-bitch. His head was pillowed on…he shifted to try to figure it out, and pain lanced straight through his eyeballs. He licked his dry lips and tried to focus. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” one of them repeated with humor. “He’s fine, he’s okay. He’s also bleeding like a stuck pig. Men are ridiculous.”

“Just stay still,” someone close said to him, the same someone who’d earlier told him that he’d been hit by a branch. It felt more like a Mack Truck. Given where her voice was coming from, directly above him, it must be her very nice rack that he was pillowed against. Risking tossing his cookies, he tilted his head back to see her. This was tricky because one, it was dark, and two, he was seeing in duplicate. Her hair was piled into a ponytail on top of her head. Half of it had tumbled free, giving her—both of her—a mussed-up, just out-of-bed look. Looking a little bit rumpled, she wore what appeared to be standard issue hospital scrubs, hiding what he could feel was a very nice, soft, female form. She was pretty in an understated way, her features delicate but set with purpose.

A doctor, maybe. Except she didn’t have the cockiness that most doctors held. A nurse, maybe.