by Toni Blake
The sounds led her instinctively inside, and she followed them—right through the open Mystery Door without even thinking. It was only then that she realized she’d come into the room Lucky had forbidden her to enter—and it was too late to fix it.
She took everything in at once. Lucky lay on the floor at the bottom of the same ladder she’d fallen from yesterday, a ribbon of wallpaper border uncoiling across his torso. And this was not a storage room. Nearby sat a single bed, neatly made. She saw a small desk, and some shelves, empty but for a couple of model race cars. And what appeared to be a toy box, as well as a bulletin board leaning against one wall. Then she absorbed the most shocking fact: It was all done in a NASCAR theme. NASCAR comforter and sheets. NASCAR-themed lamp beside the bed. Even the wallpaper border featured stock cars. What the hell was this?
But as quickly as she asked herself the question, she realized it was obvious. It was . . . a kid’s room. A boy’s room. In the process of being put together. And she knew what she was seeing, but she couldn’t figure out quite why she was seeing it, what it was doing in Lucky’s house. It was the last thing she’d expected. Not exactly drugs or guns.
That’s when Lucky finally looked up at her, eyes blazing.
She quickly reached down to lower the volume on the nearby CD player plugged into the wall and said, “Are you okay?”
He answered by shoving the wallpaper border away, bolting upright, and roaring, “What the hell are you doing in here?”
The booming voice made her flinch, and as he rose to his feet, fists clenched, he looked positively enraged. “Did you not understand when I said you couldn’t come in here? Did I not make that clear enough for you?”
This was the Lucky she’d feared in the beginning.
But . . . wait just a minute. “What I’m doing in here is making sure you didn’t just break your neck, you big lug,” she told him, getting a little testy herself. “For your info, I knocked, and I called for you—and when I heard a big crash, I figured I should see if you were dead or not.” She finished with a terse nod as if to add, Take that!
Despite still looking disgusted, Lucky seemed to relax a little, just planting his fists at his sides and letting out a sigh. But he still flashed a suspicious glare. As if she’d planned this or something.
“Quit with the look,” she went on. “I’m completely innocent in this.” Then her gaze dropped to the unwound wallpaper border still curled on the floor. “And by the way, that’s a two-person job for an amateur. No wonder you fell.”
Yet he just kept staring at her anyway, until it became almost unnerving. “Well?” he finally growled. “Aren’t you gonna ask?”
She considered the question. And decided she didn’t really have to ask now. “No. I mean, obviously . . . you must have a child. But you don’t want to talk about it for some reason. So . . . you don’t have to tell me anything.” Of course, even as she was sounding all calm and respectful about it, inside she was thinking: Whoa. Lucky Romo, a father? Would wonders never cease?
And also: It’s not drugs or guns! Thank God!
But what does all this mean? Why is your kid such a big secret?
That’s when, next to her, his shoulders slumped lightly—and he looked a little deflated. Still hot, but deflated. Until she actually felt bad for him.
“This wasn’t my fault, but I’m sorry,” she said. “Why don’t you let me help with the border.” She moved past him then, picking up the end, then climbing onto the ladder without waiting for an answer. “You can feed it up to me—just try to keep the already wet part from touching stuff, okay?” Then she got to work.
“Are you all right? From the fall?” she asked, focusing now on the corner where she was starting.
Lucky gave a brief nod in her direction even though she was no longer looking at him, grumbling, “I’ll live.” Then he sighed again as he lifted the border trailing over the side of the stepladder, to keep the wet part from sticking to it. The truth was, his back hurt and he’d probably have a killer bruise on his ass come tomorrow morning. But that was the least of his concerns.
He was mad as hell. But not at her. She was right—it wasn’t her fault. He’d left the house open, the damn door wide open. He wanted to kick himself for it.
This room—and the reason for it—wasn’t a secret he’d been ready to share yet, with anyone, but now that it was out . . . hell, the way he saw it, he really had no choice but to explain. It was really his only hope of keeping Tessa from telling all of Destiny.
“For the last ten years, I’ve lived in Wisconsin,” Lucky unhappily volunteered. “The only reason I came home is because I found out I have a kid, a son. He lives in Crestview with his mom.”
Stopping her work, she turned to peer down at him, appearing a little lost for words, until she finally said, “I told you, Lucky, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Well, maybe I want to,” he snipped.
“You didn’t yesterday,” she pointed out. “You acted like you were guarding international secrets in here or something.”
He gave his head a tilt. “Yeah, well, now that you know, I’d prefer you have the whole story rather than just half of it.” Especially if you’re gonna go running to my brother’s fiancée with it.
On the ladder above him, his sexy little neighbor just shrugged. “All right. Whatever you want.” Then she stuck up another small section of the border, smoothing it down with her fingertips.
Aw, hell. Now that he’d started this, he didn’t know quite where to begin. But maybe if he got through it, he could talk her into keeping it to herself. “He’s nine, my kid,” he started. “And I, uh, passed back through this area right before I settled in Milwaukee. But I didn’t stick around long—that’s why I didn’t know about him until now.”
“How’d you find out?” she asked, eyes on the next section of border.
“From a friend of mine in Crestview. He owns a bar there—Gravediggers.”
She nodded, looking vaguely aware of the biker bar.
“And this woman I was seeing the last time I was here—Sharon—she came in the bar one night and my buddy, Duke, heard her say my name to her friends. When he asked about it, she told him I was the father of her kid but that she’d never been able to find me.”
“So it was that simple?”
“Duke saw a picture—said the kid looked just like me—and since the timing was right, that would’ve been enough for me. But Duke’s kinda cautious, so he pretty much insisted on a DNA test. I got one in Milwaukee and Sharon handled the other end of it here. And that confirmed it. So . . . that’s why I’m here. In Destiny.”
That’s when Tessa turned to face him again for the first time in a few minutes, her hazel eyes shining on him, blinking prettily. “So, then, are you, um, seeing this woman again?”
She’d tried so hard to sound nonchalant that he almost smiled. Had he actually managed to make Tessa Sheridan jealous? That easy? And for a second, he thought about stretching that out, making her suffer a little—but then decided honesty was simpler, especially since he wasn’t too comfortable talking about all this anyway. “No. She has a boyfriend. And when I said I was seeing her back then . . . I really just meant I had sex with her one night.”
“Ah.” He caught her nervous swallow and for once didn’t mind if he was making her a little uneasy. Not that he knew why he was taking pleasure in her jealousy—given that there couldn’t ever really be anything between them.
“So . . . she’s happy to welcome you into her child’s life?” Tessa asked. And before he could reply, she added, “Don’t get me wrong—it’s just that most single moms usually feel pretty protective about their kids and wouldn’t necessarily want the upheaval of bringing a dad into the picture this late in the game.”
He shrugged. “I was surprised, too. But turns out her father just died—about six months ago—and he helped her out a lot, with money and babysitting and stuff like that, so that’s why my name came up
that night—she was really wishing I was around to do my part. And she was happy when I called and told her I was moving here, but at the same time, she wants me to get settled before I meet him—guess she wants to make sure I’m a decent guy who’ll stick around. That’s . . . sorta why I hired you. To help me get settled. To get the house settled while I get settled in here.” He pointed at his head.
“I actually knew her back before I left town after high school,” he went on, “and she told Duke she always thought . . .” his voice got a little scratchy on this part, because it was weird to say, maybe even weirder to think “ . . . that there was, uh, more good in me than I let on.” He gave his head a short shake. “Or maybe she just wants the child support, which I’m happy to pay.”
Above him, Tessa tilted her pretty head and gave him a long look. “She was right,” she said. “There is more good in you than you used to let on. If you’re willing to pack up your whole life and move across three states to be a dad to a kid you never even knew you had.”
At this, he could only offer another shrug.
Yet Tessa was looking at him like . . . like he was kind of incredible. And when he didn’t say anything more, she pressed the issue. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t really get it. You could have paid child support without moving here. And you don’t seem like a guy who’d be dying to play daddy to someone.”
“I’m not,” he assured her. “And I have no fucking idea what I’m doing.”
She shook her head then, clearly confused. “Then why are you doing it? Why did you uproot your whole existence for it?”
Lucky let out a sigh, and a small knot formed in his gut. Part of him really didn’t want to go there, and God knew he wasn’t used to talking about personal stuff so much, but . . . hell, maybe another part of him wanted to tell her. He was pretty sure no one in Destiny had any idea why he’d turned into a jerk growing up, and maybe he wanted someone here to finally understand.
Still, his voice dropped an octave when he said, “I don’t know if you remember . . . what happened when I was a kid.”
“About your sister?”
He nodded.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “Of course I do.”
Lucky took a deep breath. He might want to put it out there, but that didn’t mean it was easy. “After Anna disappeared . . . everything changed in my family. When my parents weren’t falling apart over losing Anna, they were making a fuss over Mike—since he’d been in charge of watching her when it happened and he felt guilty about it.”
She nodded, as if she knew this part—and maybe she did since she was friends with Mike’s fiancée.
But the part she didn’t know was, “So from that point on, I felt . . . pretty damn invisible. Or forgotten or something. And so . . . well, I just wouldn’t want any kid of mine to think I didn’t care, or that I wouldn’t be there for him. That’s all.”
She stayed quiet for a moment, finally saying, “That’s really admirable, Lucky.”
Yet he gave his head a short shake. “I’m not trying to be admirable. I’m just trying to keep another kid from being as miserable as I was. It’s not the same situation by a long shot, but still, I figure growing up is tough enough when things are normal, let alone when they’re not.”
“What’s your son’s name?”
“She named him after me—Johnny.”
Tessa raised her eyebrows. “Your real name is Johnny?”
“Jonathan. After my grandfather, Giovanni—it’s John in Italian.”
She smiled. “So how did you go from Jonathan to Lucky?”
Passing a little more of the wallpaper strip to her, he thought back. “When I was little, my family played a lot of board games, and I was really lucky at them. Like . . . freaky lucky. No matter what we played, I won.” He chuckled lightly then. “I remember Mike storming out of the room when I’d beat him at Sorry, or Aggravation, or Trouble. And he started calling me Lucky. Not in a nice way—in a pissed-off way. And my parents started doing it, too, to tease Mike, and by the time Anna started talking, she called me that, too—so I guess it just stuck. Even though it’s . . . pretty damn ironic.”
“How so?”
He just glanced down to the carpet beneath his feet and shook his head. “Uh, I’m not too lucky in most ways, hot stuff—trust me.” Then he got back to the subject. “And I don’t know how to be a dad, or if any of this”—he motioned around him to the room—“is what Sharon meant by getting settled—but she seemed to like the idea when I told her about it. And I figure giving Johnny a nice place to come for a couple of days a week, if we reach that point, is as good a place to start as any. I just . . . want things right for him. I don’t wanna scare him.”
When she appeared surprised at that, he simply flashed a dry expression. “Come on—you were scared shitless of me.”
She returned the look boldly, standing up a bit straighter on the ladder. “Shitless is pushing it, buster.” Then she relaxed her stance. “But yeah—you can, um, be a little intimidating.”
“So I just figured we’d both be more comfortable if I could give him a normal house to be in, and a normal room. Sharon says he’s into NASCAR.”
Tessa grinned. “I figured.” Then she tilted her head. “But why all the secrecy? Why didn’t you have me do the room, along with the others?”
At this, Lucky could only sigh. Maybe it seemed silly, but . . . “I just wasn’t ready to let anybody know. I’m still trying to get used to the idea myself and, to be honest, it just feels . . . really weird to me. Not weird enough to ignore it—but weird enough that I’m just . . . working my way toward it slowly, to make sure I don’t fuck it up.”
“You’ll be fine,” she told him. All confidence. Like she really knew him, like she really believed it.
“Why do you sound so sure?”
She smiled. “Anybody who would go to so much trouble and worry over this is bound to be a great dad.”
His face grew warm for some reason and he found himself lowering his gaze, back to the carpet, to the work boots he wore. Hell. Was he . . . blushing? Jesus Christ, what was the world coming to when rough, tough Lucky Romo’s face turned red? All because someone . . . believed in him a little.
“Now that I know about the room,” she said, “do you want me to help with the rest of it, too?”
He just shrugged. “Might as well.”
And she was back to smiling at him again. “Tell you what—anything I do in here is for free. On one condition.”
He cocked a hesitant grin in her direction. “What’s that, hot stuff?”
She pointed to the wall directly in front of the bed. “You do that wall. As a mural. The same way you paint motorcycles, but something . . . NASCAR-ish. It’ll be perfect.”
Lucky just looked at the wall. Damn—he’d never thought of that. But he could paint it. Easily. It was a good idea, and he couldn’t help liking that she appreciated his talent. “All right, babe—you got yourself a deal.” Then he looked back at her. “But, uh, listen.”
“Yeah?”
This was the important part, the whole reason he’d confided in her—even if he hadn’t meant to confide quite so much, damn it. “Can you do me a favor? Can you not tell my brother’s girlfriend I have a kid?” He sighed. “I mean, I’m sure before all is said and done, I’ll end up having to see my family, and I’ll tell them about Johnny—but I just need to do this my own way.”
She gave a solemn nod. “Fair enough.”
Okay. Good. And to his surprise . . . damn, for a guy who wasn’t usually so talkative, it felt . . . not bad to have gotten all that off his chest. Although he couldn’t help teasing her. “And can you do a better job of this,” he said, “than you did of not coming in the room?”
“I told you before—that wasn’t my fault. I heard you fall and thought you might need me to rescue you.”
He just looked up at her for a second—and then they both burst out laughing at the idea that petite little Tessa could
ever rescue a big guy like him.
In one sense, he couldn’t believe all he’d just told her, but on the other hand, he was actually laughing with her. And he hadn’t laughed like this in a long while. So—hell—maybe in a some small way, she had rescued him. Maybe she’d reminded him that sometimes it was okay to open yourself up to somebody else—just a little.
The following day, Tessa worked at the bookstore by herself until lunchtime. The morning was quiet, giving her . . . well, too much time to think. About Lucky. She remained stunned at what she’d discovered about him yesterday. And finding out what had brought Lucky home changed . . . everything. Wow, he had a kid! And he’d moved back here just for that kid, no questions asked. And if he was nervous about meeting him . . . well, even that she found weirdly charming and sort of sweet. She’d never dreamed Lucky’s big secret would be so . . . endearing.
But she couldn’t help feeling a little depressed, too. Although she’d never in her life had sex for the sheer sake of sex—it had always been about emotion for her, about being with a guy she cared about—she thought it would be okay to change that now. After all, four years without sex was . . . four years too many. And yet, at a point in time when she felt nearly overcome with the need to live her life to the fullest, when she was ready and willing to indulge in wild, devil-may-care casual sex, the man she wanted to do it with wasn’t making a move on her. Because if he was going to try to have his way with her, wouldn’t the other day, when he’d kept her from falling, have been the time and the place to do it?
Clearly, something had held him back. And Lucky didn’t seem like a guy who’d hesitate to go for what he wanted. So if he’d really desired her, wouldn’t he have let her know it? She’d been all excited and giddy over her admission to herself that she wanted him—but now it was hitting her that wanting and having were two different things. And maybe he flirted with every woman he met. Or, when it came to seduction, well . . . maybe he was only into biker chicks—maybe she was too sedate for him. Or . . . maybe finding out about her health condition had changed the way he saw her. Yuck.
