Lucky Kiss

by Melanie Shawn

  “When are you due?” Deanna had been dying to know since she’d shown up. Not only out of normal curiosity, but also because Tessa wasn’t just pregnant. She also had a two-month-old baby named Connor.

  The little guy had been awake for the first half of their lunch, and he had the sweetest temperament ever. Now, he was sound asleep in his car seat beside the table.

  “Four more weeks. I’m so ready to not have to pee every five minutes, and I can’t wait to sleep on my stomach again,” she explained with a sigh before her eyes widened. “But I have to admit that I’m a little freaked out over the prospect of having two so little. I mean, I’m so grateful, but”—she let out nervous laugh—“yeah, I’m a little freaked out.”

  Tessa was eight months pregnant and had an infant… The math didn’t add up.

  She’d been wondering about it during lunch, but she didn’t want to pry. Well, she hadn’t wanted to pry, but now that she felt like she and Tessa were old friends, maybe she could pry just a little bit.

  “So how did… I mean, how is it that… How old is Connor?”

  Okay, maybe she did still feel a little weird about being nosy.

  “Oh.” Tessa laughed, no nervousness in it this time. “That’s right. I’m so used to everyone knowing everything about my business in Hope Falls. Right. So Jake and I didn’t think we’d be able to have any kids, so we started the adoption process. A few months after that, we got the shock of our lives when we found out we were expecting. About a month later, we were told that a young woman in San Francisco had chosen us to place her baby with.”

  “Wow.” Deanna didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t imagine having one kid, much less two so close in age.

  “Yeah, wow,” Tessa repeated. “Thankfully, my sister-in-law, Amy, and her husband, Matt, had twins just a few months ago, and I’ve been talking to Levi a lot because he practically raised his twin brothers, Logan and Lucky. Have you met them?”

  “Who?” Deanna cheeks warmed, which they’d had the tendency to do whenever Lucky came up.

  Tessa didn’t notice—or she was kind enough not to call her out on it. “Amy, Matt, the twins, Levi, Logan, or Lucky. Any of them?”

  “Oh, um.” Deanna cleared her throat as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I haven’t met Amy, Matt, their twins, or Logan. But I did meet Levi and his wife, Shelby, the other night, and I’ve run into Lucky a few times. I didn’t know he was a twin.”

  None of her Internet surveying (stalking!) had revealed that nugget of information.

  “Don’t feel bad. When I came back to town, I worked at the Roadhouse for over a year and didn’t even know that Levi had any family at all, much less twin brothers he’d raised. Oh!” Tessa’s face lit up. “And Shelby is actually my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law. She’s Amy’s husband Matt’s little sister.”

  Deanna’s head was swimming with all the information about the residents and how they were all interconnected. “I feel like I need a graph or something to keep everyone straight.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Tessa laughed before her face scrunched. “Oh boy. This one’s hanging out on my bladder again. Do you mind keeping an eye on Connor while I run to the bathroom?”

  “Of course.” Deanna had never actually babysat before, but she figured that this was as good a way as any to get broken in.

  Connor was sound asleep in a car seat. How hard could it be?

  *

  “So, this is downtown?” Alder turned his head from left to right as the wooden boards of the walkway squeaked beneath their feet. “Why did you choose this place again?”

  “Family.” Lucky was getting a little sick of having to defend his decision to his camp, most of which weren’t that pleased with his decision.

  The only people happy with his lifestyle change were his publicists. Both Jessie and Maxi, the two ladies in charge of all things public-relations-related, couldn’t be happier with his cross-country move. They were thrilled to spin the back-to-basics, family-orientated direction that was in total opposition to his bad-boy, playboy reputation.

  He didn’t really care if anyone agreed with his decision or not. He didn’t care that it would be a good sound bite for press clips or that Alder didn’t want to spend the next three months there. This was his life. His career. His family.

  At the end of the day, he was the one who had to live and die by his choices.

  “Well, at least it looks like there’s some good coffee,” Alder observed with a devilish grin.

  When they’d passed Brewed Awakenings on the way to the café, both Vivien and Audrey had been outside. Lucky briefly introduced them to Alder. Then he zoned out while the three of them had chatted because his attention kept getting pulled to the firehouse across the street.

  He’d wondered when Deanna would be back—when he’d see her again. Yesterday, he’d had to stop himself from casually popping in there to look around. Oh, and asking about their shifts. His creepy peeping had been bad enough, but if he’d given in to the temptation of that, he would’ve moved into serious stalker territory.

  “I heard Energysplash is in.” Alder slapped his hand on Lucky’s shoulder. “Congrats!”

  Lucky grinned. “Thanks.”

  Alder stopped and lifted his shades. After several seconds of staring at Lucky like he’d grown another head, he shook his own in slow motion. “Jerry said that you weren’t excited about it, but I thought he was just being his usual paranoid Jerry self. But you really aren’t.”

  “When the hell did you talk to Jerry?” Lucky had only found out himself minutes before Alder had shown up.

  “I was texting with him while you were putting the cage together.” The left side of Alder’s mouth lifted in a half smile.

  “That’s who you were texting? I didn’t bust your balls because I thought it was pussy-related. If I would’ve known you and Jerry were gossiping like two old women, I would’ve called your lazy ass out.”

  “I know.” Alder smiled a gloating grin as he slapped Lucky once more. Then the two men entered the cozy café. “You really are off your game, man.”

  As soon as they stepped in, they were met with the sound of a baby crying. Lucky turned in that direction, and what he saw hit him like a sucker-punch to the gut. Deanna was sitting alone at a table, holding a wiggling baby who was letting the whole place know that he wasn’t happy.

  “Shh, shh, shh,” she shushed as she rocked back and forth while holding the baby against her shoulder and patting its tiny back.

  She has a baby?

  That thought, surprisingly, didn’t bother him at all. In fact, seeing her hold an infant felt…oddly right. What did bother him was that this new fact meant she had a baby daddy. That made Lucky’s chest constrict like an opponent’s knee was pinning him to the mat, cutting off his oxygen as if he were being choked.

  His feet started walking towards her like he was being pulled by an outside force. He hadn’t decided to make a beeline to her table. But, within three long strides, that’s exactly where he ended up.

  “Deanna,” Lucky rasped, his throat still burning.

  Her eyes were wild with panic as they shot up to him. “He won’t stop crying. The second she left, he woke up, and he won’t stop crying.”

  “She?” he asked.

  “Tessa. We were having lunch and she went to the bathroom and asked me to—”

  Oh, that made more sense.

  “Come here, little guy.” Lucky reached down and took the baby from Deanna’s arms. When he saw that the baby was doing a fish impression, he glanced down for a pacifier and plucked it from the car seat. The second he put it in his mouth, the baby started sucking loudly and settled right down.

  “How did you do that?” Awe tinged Deanna’s tone as she stared up at him like he was David Blaine and had just pulled off the most mind-blowing magic trick anyone had ever seen.

  “He has the touch. Just like his brother.” Tessa smiled widely as she waddled towards them. “Th
e first time I brought Connor to meet Levi, he started wailing. I couldn’t get him calmed down. Levi took him, and within seconds of lying on his shoulder, Connor was out. Dimples aren’t the only things that run in the Dorsey genes.”

  “Hey, Tess. How you feeling?” Lucky bent down and kissed her on her cheek. He’d gotten to know Tess and Jake fairly well at his brother’s wedding. She was a spitfire who definitely kept her husband on his toes.

  “Ugh, fat.” She grinned down at her huge stomach.

  “Well, you look beautiful,” Lucky assured her just as someone cleared their throat beside him. “Oh, Tessa, Deanna, this is my trainer, Alder. Alder, this is Tessa and Deanna.”

  After the three said hello, Connor started fussing again.

  Tessa sighed and reached for the baby. “I think that’s probably our cue. I better get going. This little guy is probably starving.”

  “I got him.” Lucky laid him in his car seat and buckled the baby securely in place.

  “Wow. Do you have kids?” Tessa asked when he stood up.

  “Nope. No kids.” Lucky loved other people’s kids, but he’d never seriously considered having any of his own. They were pretty much the definition of responsibility, and that was something he’d been fairly good at avoiding for his entire thirty years.

  “Well, you’re gonna be a great dad someday.” Tessa pulled the diaper bag strap up on her shoulder and started to grab the handle of the car seat.

  “I’ll take him out for you,” Lucky offered, reaching for her purse, too, which looked even heavier than the diaper bag. There was no way he was going to let Tessa—this late in her pregnancy—lug a fussy baby in a car seat, a heavy purse, and a diaper bag out by herself.

  “Actually, I’m leaving too. I can take him.” Deanna said as she stood, speaking so fast that her hand wrapped around the handle and he let go at the same time that she took the purse. She was halfway to the door before he had even realized what had just happened.

  “Bye. It was nice meeting you.” Tessa waved as she followed after Deanna and Connor out of the café.

  “It was nice meeting you both.” Alder waved to them.

  “You boys can sit anywhere you like. I’ll bring menus right over,” Sue Ann called out before she disappeared into the back.

  Lucky walked over to the table he’d sat at every time it was free. There, he could take in the majestic mountainside through the huge picture window that looked out over downtown.

  He sat, and instead of taking the seat across from him, Alder leaned over the table and peered out the window.

  “What are you doing?” Lucky tilted his head to see what Alder was gawking at.

  “I just wanted to get one more look at the woman who finally took down the great Lucas ‘Lucky’ Dorsey,” Alder said in his best announcer voice.

  When he straightened back up, Lucky glared at him. But Alder kept running his mouth as he sat down and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

  “I am definitely marking today on my calendar, and maybe I should look into getting her something… I feel like she deserves a medal or a belt—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucky said.

  Alder’s smile grew bigger as he rocked back in his chair. “Oh, yes. Yes, I do. And it all makes sense now. I was so confused as to why you moved your training to Small Town, USA. But it all makes sense now; the move, the two weeks of celibacy, the shitty mood you’ve been in. The second I saw the way you looked at her, I was like, ‘Vanna, I’d like to solve the puzzle. Lucky. Is. Whipped’.” His trainer laughed at his own lame-ass joke.

  He was still chuckling when Sue Ann arrived at their table with waters and menus. “I’ll give you boys a few moments to figure out what you want and then I’ll be back to take your orders.”

  Lucky decided to ignore the fun Alder was having at his expense. He opened the menu and scanned it, even though he’d made up his mind about what he was going to order before they’d even left the gym.

  “Why are you looking at that? You already know what you want,” Alder stated with a certainty that had Lucky trying to remember if he’d mentioned his ordering plans on their walk.

  He raised his eyes to his trainer.

  “And it’s not on that menu. What you want just walked out of here holding a baby in a car seat and a purse. And if my instincts are right, which they usually are, she couldn’t get away from you fast enough.” A huge grin slowly spread on his friend’s face. “I thought this place was going to be boring, but this is going to be entertaining as hell.”

  Lucky knew better than to try to defend himself. With his friends, anything he said could and would be used against him in the court of their opinions. So, instead, he smiled as if he didn’t have a care in the world and went back to perusing the menu.

  He might’ve known how to deal with his friend giving him a hard time, but unfortunately, he had absolutely no idea how to deal with his friend being right. What he wanted wasn’t on the pages he was staring at. The only thing he wanted had just walked out of Sue Ann’s carrying a purse and baby in a car seat, and he had no idea what the hell to do about it.

  Chapter 9

  ‡

  “Bishop, pick up the pace!” the chief yelled as they finished their four-mile run.

  Deanna’s speed, or lack thereof, had nothing to do with fatigue and everything to do with dread and avoidance. At the end of this run, they would be training in Lucky’s gym. Since starting her shift this morning, the guys had been talking about it nonstop. They couldn’t have been happier about training in Lucky Dorsey’s gym. She, on the other hand, had been trying to think of any way she could possibly get out of it.

  “Let’s go, Bishop!” Chris imitated the chief as he sped past her.

  For the last three hours, her mind had been scrambling to come up with any plausible solution. She’d barely registered anything that had been discussed during their change-of-shifts meeting. While they had been cleaning the equipment, she’d been operating on autopilot, going through the motions while utilizing all of her mental power to discover some loophole that would excuse her from training with the rest of her crew. During their morning run, each time one foot had fallen in front of the other, it was like they were carrying her down a plank. Every mile they completed had increased the velocity of the anxiety snowball that was picking up speed down Dread Mountain.

  Now, she was mere minutes away from that very fate, and the only thing she’d come up with to get her out of this was receiving a call. So she started praying, bartering, and pleading to the universe for that to happen.

  Not anything serious. She didn’t want any property destroyed or any lives in danger, but if, say, Mrs. Henderson’s cat climbed into her attic and got stuck like he had last week, yeah. She would be more than happy to crawl into that dusty, tiny space and get hissed at and scratched as opposed to the alternative. Or if Mr. Crowley had another bear sighting and wanted his five-acre property walked for his own peace of mind, she would be so grateful that she’d name her firstborn after him, whether it was a boy or a girl.

  Her firstborn…

  Yesterday, when Lucky had quieted Connor, Deanna’s ovaries had tingled. Who knew that a tattooed-MMA fighter holding a tiny baby would be hot? She didn’t. The only thing she would’ve expected to feel was relief that she had no longer been holding a crying baby. But, oh boy, she’d felt so much more than relief.

  Thankfully, she’d been able to get out of Sue Ann’s before she’d blurted out that she wanted to carry Lucky’s babies. But it had been close.

  Way. Too. Close.

  Mentally, Deanna prepared herself as they entered the training facility. She was determined not to let any of the thoughts, dreams, and fantasies she’d been having—starring the one and only Lucas “Lucky” Dorsey—show in her behavior, her body language, or her expressions. The only thing she was there to do was train.

  She did a quick scan of the area as she joined her crew. No sign of Lucky. Yet. But she
knew he was in the building. Well, her body knew. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck were standing up due to her Lucky Dorsey Sixth Sense.

  “Damn. I still can’t believe we’re really going to be training here,” Casey said with a sense of wonder, his hands on his hips as he caught his breath.

  “It’s crazy,” Chris concurred, mirroring Casey’s awe.

  Deanna stopped playing Where’s Waldo (Lucky Dorsey Edition) and took a moment to soak in her surroundings. This place might’ve been a “temporary” training facility, but it was state of the art. Whoever had been responsible for getting this place up and functional in such a short time had done a great job.

  “Hey there! You guys must be from Station 8. I’m Alder Hanson—”

  “Hanson,” Chris, Casey, and a few of the other guys finished with him.

  Deanna had been introduced to Lucky’s trainer yesterday, but she’d already known who he was. He was a celebrity of sorts in his own right; one of the most sought-after trainers in the world of UFC. He’d held the light-middleweight title for three consecutive years before retiring six years ago. She’d found that out during her trip to Stalker Land via Google.

  “Thanks for having us.” The chief stepped forward to make introductions, “I’m Jake, and this is Chris, Casey, Marco, Grady, Dylan, and Deanna.”

  Alder went down the line and shook hands with each person in turn. When he got to Deanna, he winked. Not a flirt wink, either. No, this was more of an I’m-in-on-a-secret wink. Which was just as uncomfortable, because Deanna had no idea what could’ve inspired it.

  “Nice to see you again.”

  “You too,” she replied automatically.

  As Alder took a step back from her, Casey’s stare was boring into her cheek. She tried her best to ignore it until he said under his breath, “I didn’t know you two were old friends.”

  “Yep. We go way back,” Deanna intoned dryly before turning her attention to her fellow firefighter. “To yesterday, when I met him.”