Sheer Luck (10 page)

I laid in bed too long, and when I couldn’t
take it anymore, I lifted my lids. No Lily. No anything. Gone.
Nausea rolled in my gut.

Sucking a harsh inhale, I climbed out of
bed. Bathroom. Email. Gym. Shower.

When I finally made it to the kitchen to try
to force some kind of food down, my lungs stalled. Right by the
coffeepot was a...Little. Pink. Note. A sound like a wounded animal
filled my kitchen, and damn. It came from me.

I couldn’t bring myself to read it. If she
had scrawled something like,
thanks for everything
or
I
had a great time
, I just might lose my shit. Permanently.

So, I made coffee and drank it in her
favorite spot by the bank of windows. The brew sat like acid in my
gut as I stared out at St. Louis, wondering what she was doing
right now. If she felt as gutted as me. If it had been hard for her
to leave. Somehow, I knew both the answers were yes. I hadn’t been
alone in this. I saw it in her eyes, felt it in her touch last
night. Which only made things worse.

Frustrated, I went for a long walk to blow
off restless energy and told Aiden I’d pick up Liam from school.
Time with the nephew would do me some good. Except it hadn’t. Same
misery, different location. Hours later, I wound up right back
where I’d been this morning—my state of mind and my body. I hadn’t
eaten, barely slept, and I missed her so fucking hard.

Sometime after dark, my friend Heath texted
me.
Your girl is here at Irish Eyes.

I stared at the text, torn between anger and
remorse. My first instinct was to rush to the pub, fill this
maddening hole she left, but the split was too new and
circumstances hadn’t changed. Plus, Heath and Josh didn’t know
about the curse. They’d never understand either it or my reasons to
not be with Lily.

Josh’s text came five minutes later.
I
love this woman! Why aren’t you here with her right now? If you
hadn’t called dibs, I’d marry her.

My friends sucked. And, of course—
of
course
—Lily would get along swimmingly with them, would win
them over with one bat of her eyelashes.

I didn’t respond and no more witty
commentary arrived from their end.

I watched some mindless TV and tried to
read, did some research on a few upcoming articles due next week.
Nothing stopped my gaze from shooting back to the pink paper on my
kitchen counter. At two a.m., I gave the fuck up and opened the
damn envelope.

Inside the folded paper was a four leaf
clover, pressed between two thin pieces of glass no larger than a
quarter. With shaking hands, I read the note.

Mo Grá,

You called me this in the last days we were
together. I am your love, and you are mine. We didn’t plan on it,
but it happened. I know your reasons for trying not to fall, yet
you did. So did I. Leaving you this note, leaving you, was the
hardest thing I’ve ever done. In a strange twist of fate, I picked
this clover the day I met you. After you walked away from me at the
park, I glanced down at a patch of grass and, mingled in with other
clovers, there it was. My hope is that by doing this, you alone can
break the curse and be with me. Declan O’Leary, I give you my love
and my luck. Please don’t throw either away. Meet me on Saturday at
Irish Eyes at 7:00. If you don’t come, I’ll understand and won’t
contact you again.

Always,

Lily xoxo

Christ. Oh, Christ Almighty.

I looked from the clover to the note. One
hundred years ago, my great-grandfather had thrown a woman’s luck
and love away, sending generations into this mess. No females had
been born in our family since. Not one of the men had been able to
hold onto forever with their women. To add crazy to the mix, this
coming Saturday, the day Lily wanted to meet, was St. Patrick’s
Day. And she just...just...

Shit. What had she done?

A strangled cry left my throat. My hands
shook so violently I had to set the note and clover on the counter
or risk dropping them both. My chest heaved. My limbs locked. My
heart pounded. Black dots swam in my peripheral.

Shit, shit, shit. What to do?

When my stomach threatened to revolt, I
pulled my cell from my pocket and connected with Aiden. I paced,
waiting for him to pick up.

“Declan? What are you doing awake? I just
closed the pub.”

“I need to see you. Now.”

“Is Dad okay? Liam?” Panic shot the
questions out, lacing my brother’s tone. The hum of Aiden’s engine
filled the quiet. Passing cars zipped, echoing in the phone.

“Yes, they’re fine. It’s me. I’m not okay. I
need to see you.”

“Okay, okay.” Tires screeched. “I turned
around. I’m five minutes away. Be right there.”

Disconnecting, I strode to the corner
cabinet, poured two fingers of whiskey into a glass and knocked it
back. Fuck it. I downed two more. The burn did little to calm my
nerves. Pouring another for myself and one for Aiden, I headed into
the living room to wait.

A ding of the elevator and Aiden shot out
the doors, did a quick visual scan of my apartment, and ate the
distance between us. “What the hell is going on?”

I handed him the whiskey. “You’ll need it.
Sit down.”

Impatience making his movements stiff, he
shrugged out of his light jacket and dropped on my couch. He held
the glass between his hands, knuckles white.

Unable to sit, I paced the length of the
floor and back, one hand fisting my hair, the other holding my
drink. I didn’t know where the fuck to begin, so I started at the
beginning. “Last summer, I met Lily in the park.”

I told Aiden the whole story, about running
into her at various places, then finally the pub. Told him about
the one week and how my feelings for her evolved. I left out her
reasons for accepting my offer and the sexual shit. With every
word, my brother grew more tense, until I was pretty certain he was
going to punch me. By the time I was done, I felt like I’d been
dragged across asphalt buck naked.

I stopped. Pacing and talking. Then I downed
my whiskey and set the glass on the coffee table between me and my
brother.

Aiden hadn’t moved, but judging by his
narrowed eyes and clenched jaw, he was plotting ten thousand ways
to kill me. Finally, he set his drink down very carefully and rose.
“You stupid sack of shit. I told you not to get involved. I asked
you to keep her from the curse—“

“About that.” I went into the kitchen,
retrieved the note and clover, and returned. I gave Aiden the
letter.

His gazed skimmed the note. He stilled,
reared, and reread the thing. After a beat, he dropped to the couch
as if his legs couldn’t hold him. His gaze jerked to mine.

I held up the clover between two
fingers.

A gust of air left my brother. He swiped a
hand down his face and rubbed his neck. “Shit, man.”

“Yeah.”

He picked up his drink, tossed it back in
one swallow, and slammed the glass down. “What are you going to
do?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Would I
have called you to come over at two a.m. if I had any idea what I
was going to do?”

“Right. Okay, let’s figure this out.”

I paced again. Hope and anxiety battled
inside my chest.

“If you don’t go, you’d save her from the
curse.”

My yes came out more like,
duh
.

“If you do go...”

“I could break the curse or lose her.” At
this point, our lives boiled down to a flip of a fucking coin. My
stomach knotted. I wore the floorboards down to sawdust. Gnashed my
teeth. “Hell, Aiden. I love her so damn much it hurts.”

His gaze lowered to his hands. “She’s been
gone less than a day. Try having the best year of your life,
bearing a beautiful boy together, only to watch her bleed out in
childbirth.”

“Christ.” I plopped next to my brother and
poured us two more fingers of whiskey. “I can’t do it. I can’t lose
her the way you lost Amy. I don’t know how you keep breathing.”

Aiden nodded. “For Liam, that’s how.” He sat
back and sipped his drink. After a contemplative pause, he looked
at me. “You could end it all, right now. In all these years, no
woman has done what Lily offered. You could break the curse.”

I drank from my glass. Poured another. “And
what if it doesn’t work?”

Aiden closed his eyes and sighed. “The thing
is, if you don’t go, isn’t that like what Great-Grandfather did?
Throwing her luck and love away? Does that start a whole new cycle
of curses?”

Sometime between then and the bottom of the
bottle, Aiden and I got shitfaced and crashed on the couch, having
not solved the great debate.

I awoke midday with my tongue stuck to the
roof of my mouth, leprechauns hammering the inside of my skull, and
sunlight scorching my retinas.

After a shower, three aspirin, and a bottle
of water, I drifted into my office. I uploaded the photo Lily had
texted me a few days ago, the one of her laying on my bed, and
printed the picture. I put it in an old frame, along with the
clover, and set it on my desk. I was still staring at her beautiful
face when night fell.

I got drunk. Again. Alone, this time.

It didn’t help eradicate her from memory,
but it did knock me out clean into the next day, so there was
that.

The closer it got to the time Lily asked to
meet, the more insane I became. Like a caged animal, I prowled my
apartment. Go? Don’t go? Risk losing her? Take the chance to be
with her? Maybe end the curse? Perhaps start a new one?

I was ready to claw right out of my skin. My
head pounded. My gut ached. I was pretty certain a hot poker to the
eye would feel better than this limbo. And this wasn’t just about
me. If the curse wasn’t broken by her act, she’d be taken from me
in one form or another. There was my family to consider as well. I
had the potential to stop years of heartache, end our despair, or
start a whole new brand of we’re-screwed.

What. The. Fuck. To. Do?

6:30. My heart stopped. I needed to figure
it out.

Striding into my office, I grabbed her
letter and read it for the millionth time. My gaze landed on her
picture, on the clover in the lower corner of the frame sitting on
my desk. I looked, really looked at her, and tried to empty my mind
of the chaos.

Her blue eyes grounded me, brought back all
the times we’d talked, the things I’d told only her. She’d looked
at me with intense interest, listened to every word, had been
invested in what I had to say. The way her hair spread out over my
bed, around her face, had the memory of her scent filling my nose,
the calming presence she invoked. I could almost feel those strands
through my fingers. Her mischievous smile, a tease, had my body
tightening in response. She could make me laugh and pull a groan
with her lips alone. I remembered the way she took care of me when
I’d overdone it in the gym and how good she was with Liam.

The woman spoke French because she’d read
Les Miserable
as a teen and thought the language would be
romantic to learn. She had no family, had been shown very little
affection, yet she loved with her whole being. Brave enough to take
chances, smart enough to proceed with caution. Selfless, giving,
she’d tamed even a guy like me, brought out long-buried desires. We
had passion and chemistry. And clever woman that she was, she’d
found a way to try and break a curse, to bring hope back in my
life.

I straightened. Blew out a breath.

There. My answer. She was it for me. There
would never be anyone else, and she risked everything, knowing our
family history, to take the chance on us. I had to do the same.

Grabbing my coat, I ran out the door. Rush
hour would be dying down, so I took the elevator to the parking
garage level and hoofed it to my car. The drive to Irish Eyes was
the longest five minutes of my life. My gaze kept darting to the
dashboard clock.

6:55.

6:56.

6:58.

At 7:01, I pulled into the pub’s parking lot
and bolted for the door. Yanking it open, I was assaulted by heat,
noise, and the smell of beer. Being Saturday and St. Patrick’s Day,
the place was packed. Wall to wall bodies.

I shoved my way inside and toward the bar,
three rows deep with patrons. Aiden had two additional bartenders
working. I tried to see around the crowd and finally spotted my
brother on the other side of the bar, talking to some people. I
elbowed my way through, gaze scanning the room for Lily’s dark
hair.

I didn’t see her. Panic started to claw my
chest the closer I got to Aiden. He’d know if Lily was here, or if
she’d been in at all.

A group of guys shouted
cheers.
The
Irish music from the speakers could barely be heard over the noise.
Female giggling grated my ears.

Where the hell was she?

Finally, I squeezed through the bustle and
shouted for Aiden. From a few feet away, he turned his head toward
me and stilled. Slowly, he straightened from where he’d been
leaning on the bar. His gaze bore into mine, searching, probing. I
forced a swallow and nodded, silently telling him I’d decided. And
I chose her. Love. Understanding dawned in Aiden’s eyes, softening
the thin line of his mouth into a knowing smile. With a tilt of his
head, my brother indicated the person in front of him.

I shifted my focus and...there she was.
Turned halfway on her stool, wearing a light green sweater and
skinny jeans, she regarded me through her blue eyes and a carefully
masked expression.

The room emptied of noise, everything else
fading away. It was just her and me.

I wove through a group of women to stand in
front of her, the crowd shoving us in close proximity. I stood
between her knees, the height of the stool putting her at eye level
with me. Someone slammed into my back, jostling me closer, but I
kept my gaze on her. Two days had felt like two hundred years
without her. I wasn’t even sure my heart was beating.